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sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
Sixty Inches From Center
@sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
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Sixty is a worker-led collective and publishing platform dedicated to supporting and promoting the art, archives, and writing of Indigenous, diasporic, queer, trans, and disability communities in Chicago and the Midwest. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
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sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
"and what they won’t tell you is that half of it is yours..." Chicago’s inaugural Youth Poet Laureate E'mon Lauren explores femme rage, racialized beauty standards, class, lineage, and hustling to make ends meet in three new poems. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/finessing-is...
Image: A glossy collage of magazine cutouts including various women and text from Ebony magazine are presented against a vibrant orange background. Illustration by kee mabin.
November 14, 2025 at 9:51 PM
sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
Light dazzles. It tricks, it confounds. A turn of the light. Katy Kim reviews Jarod Lew's "Strange You Never Knew" at University of Michigan Museum of Art: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/strange-you-...
Image: Abu and Anna, 2023, Jarod Lew. Archival pigment print. Two people sit on a deep green leather couch. One is sitting upright, wears a purple vest, and has pink curlers in their hair. The other person is slouching and wears a red tracksuit. A large gold vase filled with tall red flowers sits on a coffee table in front of them. Image courtesy of the artist.
November 14, 2025 at 6:59 PM
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"Why would you even be a poet if you weren’t willing to bare yourself to yourself?" Two poets connect on shared experiences of living with disability, and dive into the background that drove the poems which blossomed into a debut book: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/hardly-creat...
Image: An illustration made up of large sections of purple, green, blue, pink, and red with wide, white lines running through the middle. Small stars and hearts of different colors are clustered in groups and scattered throughout the image. The top right corner has four different sized and colored rectangles; one has a black swirl drawn in the center, another a red flower, the third and fourth are abstract animals. In the center, five silhouettes are connected by their hands. The bottom right corner has a framed red square with text reading: "There is space within." Illustration by Alexis Stein.
November 12, 2025 at 9:38 PM
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Outfitted at UIC's Gallery 400, "Don’t mind if I do" adventurously models accessibility and accommodation. Read the review by by Lucas Gòmez-Doyle: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/in-access-we...
Image: Don’t mind if I do installation view, 2025. An installation view of Don’t Mind if I do, featuring the conveyer belt table centered between a grey couch with colorful pillows and various style chairs placed loosely around the table in the space. The words “don’t mind if we do flowing we” hang on the white wall behind the table. Photo by Jonas Mikosch Müller-Ahlheim.
November 11, 2025 at 1:03 AM
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Veronica Kirin interviews Harriet Berg, Penny Gardner, and Grace Stinton— three Michigan women whose art, teaching, and advocacy has had lasting impacts across the Midwest and beyond: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/your-impact-...
Image: A digital illustration of Grace Stinton, Penny Gardner, and Harriet Berg at the center of the image inside of a stitch quilt. They are posing and smiling. Behind them are examples of their works–including beaded and quilted objects. The image is framed with stitched white lines. Illustration created by Julia O'Brien.
November 9, 2025 at 1:31 AM
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Una activación de Marquette Park a través de la Residencia Curatorial Anchor inspira esta reflexión ecfrástica por Carlos Flores: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/lo-que-la-ti...
Imagen: Porta(til) Performance, foto del vídeo de Ruby Que. Carlos Flores frente a una pared de ladrillos pintada de rojo, caminando con una carretilla construida por el mismo. Cortesía del curador. / Image: Porta(til) Performance, video still by Ruby Que. A person in front of a red-painted brick wall, walking with a self-constructed wheelbarrow. Courtesy of the curator.
November 6, 2025 at 7:20 PM
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Emily Gastineau, a writer embedded in the latest dance work of Minneapolis-based artist José A. Luis, examines the process of transforming writing to choreography to performance. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/work-rest-lo...
Image: Jose A. Luis (left) and D. Hunter (right) pose while seated in front of the mirror in the dressing room of Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis. Image by Wordsworth Musinguzi.
November 5, 2025 at 10:15 PM
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In this animated comic by Carlos Matallana, an immersive sound healing experience by Jamila Woods and chamber music collective D-Composed combines music and movement. Read the comic: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/bonding-in-s...
Image: A black and white comic cover image features two illustrated characters. One is playing a sound bath and the other is sitting on a yoga mat. The title "Bonding in snuggle" is in a black font on the upper left corner and the lower right continues, "Jamila Woods & D-composed review by Carlos Matallana."
November 5, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Megan Bickel spoke with Simon S. Belleau about the wires, seams, and scripts of the spectacle that change the way we experience time and politics on screen that the artist interrogates in their recent exhibition, Thousand Telephones at Letters to Nora. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/dialogue-wit...
Image: Installation view of a corner of the gallery. On the left, the artwork Speech Assistance Machine (Leonard Cohen’s Democracy, 1992). Materials include a Fruit shipping box, 3.2-inch Raspberry Pi LCD screen, birch plywood frame, and video. On the right, is an artwork titled Self-portrait as a table. It includes eleven printed photographs on twenty layers of upcycled posters. Image courtesy of Letters to Nora.
November 3, 2025 at 10:15 PM
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In Indianapolis, new classical classical music collective Sound Ecologies is cultivating a thriving new music scene. Read the interview by Camille Arnett: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/tuning-into-...
Image: An analog paper collage that features a textured black-and-green background/ At the center is an image featuring imagery of leaves and foliage layered underneath torn image fragments of natural foliage, a violin orchestra. At the top left is an orchestra conductor’s hand pointing a conductor baton toward a mushroom that features music notes beneath it. Image created by Bri Robinson.
October 31, 2025 at 12:50 PM
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In scent artist agustine zegers’ latest exhibition at UIC's Gallery 400, the smell of petroleum summons memory and emotion to explore our paradoxical tenderness for man-made toxins. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/a-toxin-thre...
Image: transformación bentónica, 2024. Seabed stone on a white striped pedestal. Image courtesy of Prairie, Chicago.
October 30, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Last July, Mrittika Ghosh attended the 2025 Social Conference at Chicago's McCormick Center. While she arrived wondering how the wider left sees art, she left with the question: how can artists make revolution irresistible? sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/in-service-o...
Image: Four performers dance onstage as part of the 2025 Socialism Conference at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center. The four performers are bending at the knee while balancing with their backs resting in each other's lap with their arms raised into the air. Image credit: Sarah-Ji/Love + Struggle Photos.
October 23, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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2025 Bemis Center Critic-in-Residence Pia Singh reflects on inter-connectedness and upheaval in the struggle to save the planet's water from capitalism in the exhibition “Great Lakes, Great Plains” sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/at-waters-ed... @bemiscenter.bsky.social
Image: View of Platte Basin Timelapse River of Time, 2011-2025, single channel video (color); 1 minute, 48 seconds. Courtesy of Platte Basin Timelapse at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Image by Colin Conces.
October 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Pharmacy receipts become a paper trail and paraphernalia of a personal medical record, testifying to the body as a fragile, relational archive of evolving needs in Katz Tepper’s exhibition at Prairie Chicago.

Read the review by Noa Micaela Fields: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/patient-xero...
Katz Tepper, Zipper From a Smaller Time Shirt (“monarch butterfly flew very close to me”; “You owe $400”), 2025. A white cotton t-shirt is suspended from the ceiling on a wooden dowel rod frame in front of a window. The t-shirt is interwoven with various materials, including a medical bill, gingko leaves, a dirty government document, newsprint, an alcohol swab with a blood stain, alcohol swab wrappers, seeds, fiberglass insulation, syringes and their wrappers, wood dust, fishing line, a kid’s jacket remnant with a metal zipper, thread, tape, quilting pins, etc. Image courtesy of Prairie Chicago.
October 22, 2025 at 7:27 PM
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“Let’em cook.” “Stop it. You can’t say that. It’s not you,” Mateo chides. “What’chu mean? That’s what our generation says, don’t they?” Read Chenoa Baker's conversation with her brother about "We Built This: Making Through Migration" at Zhou B Art Center: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/art-in-sibli...
Image: Installation view from We Built This: Making Through Migration. Pasaporte de Abelardo Montoya by Keny De La Peña is a large textile artwork resembling a Mexican passport. The left panel shows the gold emblem and text “MEXICO PASAPORTE,” while the right panels recreate passport pages one blank, the other featuring a Muppet-like character as the ID photo. Image courtesy of Zhou B Art Center.
October 17, 2025 at 3:18 PM
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A look at “The Rockford Anthology” from @beltpublishing.bsky.social through the eyes of Emily McClanathan, who reconsiders her own relationship to the town she spent much of her teens in. sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/midway-to-ho... @emilymcclanathan.bsky.social
Image: “You Belong Here” by Laura Gomel (foreground) and Brett Whitacre (background), photograph by Alan León. A black and white photograph of two billboard-sized signs that each say “YOU BELONG HERE”. Courtesy of Belt Publishing.
October 10, 2025 at 2:06 PM
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Cincinnati-based artist Michael Coppage’s sculptures embody the tension, vulnerability, and physiological violence of Black life interrupted by police encounters. Asa Featherstone IV documents Coppage's studio and labor in a new photo essay: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/inside-micha...
Image: Detail of Michael Coppage in his home studio handling his bronze sculpture, “Hands behind your back,” depicting a hyper-realistic human waist and legs in a kneeling position. Michael stands at the back of the sculpture dusting the bare feet of the sculpture. Photo by Asa Featherstone, IV.
October 6, 2025 at 1:29 PM
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While contemplatig Olivier Assayas’ 1994 coming-of-age film “Cold Water” and the writing of David Wojnarowicz, Riley Yaxley tries to make sense of the transformative — and risky — potential of friendship with men: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/the-risky-se...
Image: A drawing of a man seated and holding a flower. His face is downturned, and his shirt and pants are unbuttoned, revealing his hairy chest and abdomen. The image is rendered in deep blues and purples. Illustration by Sammi Crowley.
October 4, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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"The group disperses around the space to explore every creak, bang, ding, bell, tick, and hum...." Livy Snyder reflects on a sound walk through Chicago’s pedways with Allen Moore: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/tuning-away-...
Image: Layered digital collage on a black background featuring backwards text around an ear with hands around it in a school hallway. Green colored tape and paper is laid on the top and bottom of the image. Image by Bri Robinson.
October 3, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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"It’s important for kids to understand the power of dreaming beyond what’s happening..." Step inside the the 2025 Wonder of Words Literary Festival: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/against-all-...
Image: On a white table with colored pencils, a black and white image of blues singer Nina Simone with a painted replica of the image underneath. A brown hand grazes the edge of the table. Photo by EdVetté Wilson Jones.
September 17, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Big Chicks, a historic LGBTQ+ bar in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, comfortingly silhouettes all figures—artwork or not. Read the essay by Samuel Schwindt: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/comforting-g...
Image: View of a large painting positioned above a shelf full of board games over the top wood tables and chairs. The painting is from the Chicago Imagist tradition. It features a triptych of stylish women in various stages and experiences in their lives. Behind one of the woman is a smiling devil hanging on a fabric that started flowing out from one of the homes in the row of building behind the women. Photo by Tonal Simmons.
September 16, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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"Este artículo es un homenaje a Haughville, el pequeño barrio del oeste de Indianápolis que se ha convertido en mi maestro y mi iglesia..." Lee más de Nasreen Khan en español y inglés: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/haughvilles-...
Imagen: Collage hecho para Sixty por Darien Hunter Golston, inspirado en Holy Fire de Haughvilles escrito por Nasreen Khan. // Image: Collage by Darien Hunter Golston, inspired by Haughvilles' Holy Fire written by Nasreen Khan.
September 12, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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This month's Art Picks include art fairs, printmaking workshops, book signings, Día de Los Muertos celebrations, exciting new work from artists across the Midwest, and more! See what Art Picks are happening near you: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/september-ar...
Image: a close up on the openings of black tubes stacked in a hive-like rows. Inside each tube are small golden, bronzed, and silver stamps of various shapes. Some appear to be flowers, one is a castle tower, another is a skull and crossbones, others are abstract shapes. Image by Ian Carstens.
September 10, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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What began as an experiment in a dorm room has become Finders Keepers on Chicago's WHPK 88.5 FM — an evolving platform for discovering new music, connecting generations of DJs and musicians, and archiving community history. Read the interview by Livy Snyder: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/tuning-away-...
Image: Layered paper collage on green. The head of a figure wearing black headphones is framed in the center of the collage. Image by Bri Robinson.
August 16, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Every month Sixty, invites a guest to recommend Art Picks that highlight the creative communities of their community. This month's featured guest is artist, writer, and educator Rachel Hausmann Schall based in Wausau, Wisconsin. Check out Rachel's picks: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/august-art-p...
August 13, 2025 at 9:15 PM