Dorian Sylvain and her sons heal the ‘open wounds’ of disinvestment with their art.
By Justin Agrelo
Dorian Sylvain and her sons Kari and Kahari paint images of Black resilience and empowerment on the former Urban Partnership bank. (Photo: Justin Agrelo/City Bureau)
This profile is part of the How a Community Heals series.
On the bustling intersection of 71st Street and Jeffery Boulevard in late June, about a dozen young artists held cups of paint as they finished covering an abandoned bank in a bouquet of colors.
The group was convened by artist Dorian Sylvain, a muralist and sculptor from South Shore. Sylvain and her sons, Kari and Kahari, who are also artists, use their art campaign Mural Moves Chicago to beautify Black and brown communities that have undergone decades of disinvestment and blight.
Considering the upheavals of 2020, “artists are really needed to help the community envision the future,” Sylvain says. “There's a lot of really open wounds, a lot of frustration. The Black community just need to see some peace and some hope and some light at the end of the tunnel.”
After the police killing of George Floyd, businesses throughout Chicago boarded up their storefronts to fend off possible looting, morphing the beautiful cityscape into a gallery of plywood. As media and elected officials focused on looting and property damage, Sylvain and her sons helped to paint murals over businesses’ boarded-up windows in a community healing project they called “Chicago Boards to Murals.”
The artists covered the empty bank building in bright pink paint then added their own designs. (Photo: Justin Agrelo/City Bureau)
To Sylvain, chronic blight is more than just an eyesore. “Seeing blocks and blocks of boarded up businesses, just does something to your mind,” Sylvain says. “Artists painting murals is equivalent to people coming out to sweep up broken glass. ... That’s where our skill lies.”
Sylvain grew up in South Shore in the 60s and 70s. She remembers popping in and out of the many Black-owned businesses that used to line 71st Street. South Shore was where she first started making art at the YMCA and the Chicago Public Library, drawing inspiration from the cultural boom that was happening on the South Side at the time. “There were musicals, avant garde, Black theaters, murals were coming up with Calvin Jones and Marcus Akinlana,” Sylvain recalls. “There was a wealth of culture that was really swirling around the community at the time.”
Now, much like the Urban Partnership Bank, many of the decorated storefronts Sylvain remembers as a kid now sit empty.
“I mean, my gosh, six years without a grocery store in South Shore,” Dorian says. “There are some neighborhoods in Chicago that hadn't been redeveloped or reinvested in since 1968—when [Martin Luther] King was killed.”
“This is the kind of disinvestment that the city has put certain neighborhoods through” she continues, “and it destroys the people.”
(Photo: Justin Agrelo/City Bureau)
As tensions simmered throughout the city and businesses gradually reopened, many of the boards came down. The family has since continued their traditional mural work, starting with the bank in South Shore.
Sylvain acknowledges that murals alone are not enough to undo the violent history of white supremacy in this country. That healing from such a dark legacy requires “so much.” But public art can generate hope for a future where yesterday’s scars are fully mended.
“The simple act of painting a boarded-up building makes you feel like ‘wow, I sure do rather see orange and yellow on than just raw wood,” Sylvain explains. “You know, little things. Little things sometimes can give us enough to make us get up the next day and say I'm gonna continue this fight.”
Justin Agrelo (he/him) is a queer, Puerto Rican journalist from Chicago’s Northwest side. He is a writer and storyteller working to make space for marginalized folks in predominating narratives by centering voices that are often overlooked by traditional media.
This story is available to republish under a Creative Commons license. Read City Bureau’s guidelines here.
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