From Dialogue to Practice: The Summer 2026 Civic Arts Workshop Series at The Common|Wealth
The inaugural “We the Publics…” Civic Arts Talk on May 13, 2026, was never intended to be a static, isolated event; it was carefully curated as a catalyst to launch Sweet Water Foundation’s 2026 summer season. As scholars, artists, and neighbors gathered at The Common|Wealth for the first official Wellness Wednesday of 2026, a powerful current of action was set in motion. Participants engaged in collective labor, civic arts, and a shared farm-to-table meal while hearing Dr. Imani Perry, Dr. Reuben Jonathan Miller, and Omo Moses speak on ancestral sanctuaries, protective geographies, and the traditions of "freedom dreaming" amidst carceral systems and immense uncertainty. Together, they were challenged to consider: How do we sustain spaces ofrefuge, beauty, and wellness in the midst of a world fraught with adversity?
The response to this question was immediately visible across The Common|Wealth. The “We the Publics…” Civic Arts Talk did not merely offer theoretical concepts delivered by authors and scholars—it grounded the day's real-life actions in rich historical purpose, pointing directly to Sweet Water Foundation as a living solution. As Dr. Imani Perry and Omo Moses unspooled the legacies of figures like Anne Spencer, George Washington Carver, and Bob Moses, they recognized that the physical land, the timber structures, and the daily rituals of SWF were already answering that call. The Common|Wealth was named not as an experiment aspiring toward sanctuary, but as an active, living sanctuary where the words and works of these ancestors are continuously made real.
The Summer 2026 Civic Arts Workshop Series was designed as a curated continuation of the harvest from the catalytic May 13 event. The series introduced SWF’s civic arts practice to an intergenerational audience as part of SWF’s annual Wellness Wednesday ritual, bringing theoretical legacy into physical, hands-on motion. This year’s series further brought that legacy to life, as we worked and created daily to “grow something beautiful in the thicket of a despairing world.”
Continue reading to learn more about the Summer 2026 Civic Arts Workshop series.
The Ripple Effect: From Resonance to Catalysis
The May 13 gathering catalyzed immediate new connections while deepening existing ones. Moved by the physical practice, the land, and the dialogue, Omo Moses returned to The Common|Wealth the very next day, bringing his longtime friend and colleague, Shannon Bennett, Executive Director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO). The resonance between KOCO and Sweet Water Foundation (SWF) was instantaneous—a natural alignment born of shared purpose, deep South Side roots, and a mutual commitment to intergenerational organizing.
Less than 24 hours later, during a Friday Neighborhood Market, Shannon returned with a group of KOCO staff, youth, and elders for a full tour of the Communiversity campus. By June, that initial visit became an enduring weekly ritual. Every Wednesday throughout the summer, KOCO youth and staff joined the SWF team and Neighborhood Academy members on the land—putting their hands in the soil, sharing a farm-to-table meal, and transitioning directly into creative practice. The May 13 talk had found its living, summer-long manifestation.
At the same time, the May 13 gathering rooted artist and educator Juarez Hawkins in SWF’s civic arts practice, setting the stage for her role as Summer 2026 Civic Artist-in-Residence. What began as a single moment of reflection on May 13 blossomed into an 11-week summer ritual, bringing KOCO staff, youth, elders, and neighborhood partners together on the land to learn, labor, and create side by side.
Welcoming Juarez Hawkins as the Summer 2026 Civic Artist-in-Residence
To curate this 11-week activation, Sweet Water Foundation invited artist, curator, and educator Juarez Hawkins to serve as the Summer 2026 Civic Artist-in-Residence and lead the summer workshop series. An accomplished artist, lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and member of the historic African American female artist collective Sapphire and Crystals, Juarez brought decades of expertise in ceramics, curatorial practice, and South Side cultural preservation.
Juarez’s connection to the SWF community was deeply organic. As a foundational teaching artist at the Hyde Park Art Center, Juarez taught several SWF community members who attended her classes over the years. Long before Juarez formally stepped onto the Communiversity campus, a reciprocal relationship existed: the SWF team regularly brought fresh greens and produce from the Community Farm directly to her classes.
Juarez visited The Common|Wealth for the first time in winter 2026, during which she toured the site and experienced SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development firsthand. In spring, Juarez returned to begin understanding Sweet Water Communiversity’s vast civic arts portfolio —from nature prints and mulberry dyes to nature-weaving—showing her the abundance of natural materials (flowers, berries, leaves, stalks, branches) and upcycled "waste" (reclaimed farm rope, timber scraps, cardboard) available for the summer. The spring walkthrough served as her initial orientation to the site and the formal invitation to join SWF as the Summer Resident.
That invitation was quickly followed by her first full immersion into The Common|Wealth during Wellness Wednesday and the "We the Publics..." Civic Arts Talk on May 13, 2026. During the morning session, while Dr. Reuben Jonathan Miller initiated dialogue on institutional structures, Juarez got her first hands-on experience engaging in SWF’s civic arts practice alongside community members, rolling up her sleeves inside the Thought Barn to paint botanical images using natural pigments. By the time she sat in the Civic Arts Church for the afternoon talks, she had already experienced the continuous, alternating current of physical labor, creative practice, and intellectual unpacking that defines Sweet Water Foundation.
With these experiences in place, Juarez and the SWF team were ready to jointly curate an 11-week series rooted in SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND), reflecting her unique mastery of materials, identity, and community pedagogy.
From Context to Creation: The Rhythm of Wellness Wednesdays
In true Sweet Water Foundation form, the summer workshops were designed as immersive, multi-sensory experiences. Held inside the sanctuary of the Civic Arts Church, participants gathered at hand-crafted timber tables surrounded by an inspiring visual landscape: SWF's permanent collection, the active exhibition Poiesis: Coming Into Being at The Common|Wealth, and community artwork created by youth from Beasley Academic Center and the Neighborhood Academy.
Every Wednesday afternoon unfolded through an intentional, three-part rhythm of learning and practice. Sessions commenced with a brief presentation by Juarez Hawkins, who grounded the day’s project in historical, cultural, and ancestral contexts—linking the specific techniques directly to figures like George Washington Carver, Anne Spencer, or traditional African craft legacies. From there, the focus shifted to the material abundance harvested directly from the six-block campus. Juarez introduced accessible, natural resources—such as ripe mulberries, calendula blossoms, mugwort and wild grape leaves, and reclaimed cardboard—and demonstrated the physical techniques while guiding participants through hands-on methods. Finally, the church opened into a period of shared, collective creation, where participants dove into their own artistic process, supported by live music, seasonal nourishment, and intergenerational mentorship.
The atmosphere during these afternoons was rich with sound and taste. Live music reverberated through Civic Arts Church, anchored by SWF Human-in-Residence Charles Pryor alongside a rotating ensemble of visiting percussionists, bassists, and vocalists. As hands worked clay or pressed leaf prints, participants enjoyed farm-fresh herbal teas steeped from freshly harvested marigold, mint, and calendula flowers, paired with seasonal sweets baked on-site—including farm-fresh peach cobbler, rich beet chocolate cake, and warm zucchini bread.
Summer 2026 Civic Arts Workshop Series-in-Review
From June 3 to August 15, the Civic Arts Church became a weekly studio for intergenerational creation. The series engaged over 250 participants in 12 different civic arts projects across eleven distinct workshops held during SWF’s annual Wellness Wednesday ritual.
Beyond Wellness Wednesdays: Bringing Summer Civic Arts to Friday Neighborhood Markets
The creative energy cultivated during Wellness Wednesday workshops was never contained within a single day or a closed group. Every Friday throughout the summer, Sweet Water Foundation extended its civic arts practice directly into the broader neighborhood during the Friday Neighborhood Market. Set up right alongside our farm-fresh produce stand and Charles Pryor’s live music setup, the Civic Arts Table transformed market day into an interactive, open-air studio for marketgoers, local families, and curious passersby. The team cleverly adapted Wednesday’s complex workshop activities into accessible, drop-in creative experiences—allowing neighbors who couldn't commit to a multi-hour workshop to pause, press fresh mulberry dyes onto fabric, draw a seasonal flower, or roll a clay bead before heading home with their weekly harvest.
The Summer 2026 Civic Arts Workshop Series also became a dynamic avenue for cross-cultural exchange, welcoming visiting groups—such as an international student delegation from the National University of Singapore—who joined community members across both a Friday Neighborhood Market and a Wellness Wednesday workshop to create paintings using hand-harvested and pressed mulberry watercolors.
The Neighborhood Academy's steady leadership and intergenerational continuity made this broad neighborhood outreach possible. As long-standing anchors of the Sweet Water Foundation community, core members—including Alesia, Big, Carmani, and Naomi—brought deep practice and consistency to every activation. They served as the crucial bridge between Wednesday's deep-dive workshops and Friday's public market table. Neighborhood Academy members worked alongside Juarez and the SWF team to guide market visitors and model how to use tools, respect the natural environment, and move with intentionality across campus.
Growing Something Beautiful
Reflecting on the summer of 2026, the Civic Arts Workshop Series demonstrated how Sweet Water Foundation’s practice of Regenerative Education and community wellness are sustained through continuous, physical engagement with the land.
During her address on May 13, Dr. Imani Perry brought to light what it meant for poet Sterling Brown to witness Anne Spencer “growing something beautiful in the thicket of a despairing world.” She offered this historical reflection as a challenge and a guide for our present time.
Throughout eleven weeks of collective labor, sensory nourishment, and creative practice, Sweet Water Foundation, Juarez Hawkins, KOCO, and the Neighborhood Academy answered that call. By taking the intellectual concepts introduced on May 13—historical sanctuary, the agricultural wisdom of George Washington Carver, the protective mentorship of Anne Spencer and Sterling Brown, and the organizing legacy of Bob Moses—and translating them into hands-on art, live song, and shared farm-to-table meals, the community demonstrated what it truly means to be "poets of purpose."
Through the simple, profound acts of crushing mulberries for dye, listening to bass notes resonate through timber beams, tasting calendula tea, shaping clay with leaf impressions, and welcoming marketgoers on Fridays, over 200 neighbors, youth, and elders sustained a living sanctuary on the South Side. They proved that when a community honors its land, shares its food, and creates art from its own abundance, it builds the infrastructure for collective wellness—showing that even in the thicket of a despairing world, beauty and life will continuously take root.
