By City Bureau

City Bureau’s Public Newsroom is looking to hire a guest curator for three workshops in Fall 2019. The Public Newsroom is our two-hour weekly workshop series where we discuss, debate and deconstruct some of the most pressing issues in Chicago and share tools on approaching them. 

Last year Chicago authors Rayshauna Gray and Daniel Kay Hertz guest curated three workshops around the theme “How Do We Memorialize Chicago?” You can read more about or get inspiration from their theme here and what it was like to curate the PN here.

This year we’re looking for one curator to create workshops for October 31, November 7 and 21. Your workshop series can be either thematic (i.e. “How to report on sexual violence?”) or geographic (within Chicago only). Geographically we’re currently focusing on Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, Chatham, Garfield Park, Pullman and Roseland, but are open to pitches outside of those areas. Your series can pose a question, explore certain cultural history or be a series of trainings. 

What goes into curating? 

  • Identifying an umbrella theme or geographic location (could be a neighborhood, ward, specific street, etc.)

  • Creating three workshops to address different facets of this theme or serve that location

  • Identify hosts for each workshop and co-create activities for the two hours

  • Identify workshop locations such as libraries, restaurants—the City Bureau team will support in locking down the spaces

  • Coordinating with City Bureau’s Director of Community Engagement and Program Support Coordinator

  • Curators spend roughly 15-20 hours over a month and a half of planning the three workshops

Things that DO NOT make a good curator: 

  • Someone one who wants to just host lectures.

  • Someone who just wants to promote their work. 

Things we DO think make a good curator: 

  • Someone with teaching experience whether a full-time job or the occasional workshop.

  • Someone who’s looking to explore a framework, share a skill or have a civic literacy conversation. (Check out these respective examples: PN104, PN80, or PN114)

  • Someone who wants to learn! You’ve got a great project that could benefit the communities City Bureau serves and/or could use their feedback. 

  • Someone interested in creating work that reflects a hybrid of equitable organizing, reporting and education. 

  • BONUS: Someone capable of testing non-English or bilingual workshops relevant to the areas where they’d be hosted.

City Bureau’s Public Newsroom team will help vet workshops, prep hosts, facilitate food/drink and provide workshop materials. Curators will also have access to a wide variety of resources via the City Bureau network. 

This is a paid opportunity: The curator will receive a $1,000 stipend for their time. We also digitize materials from these workshops (photos, activity sheets) for curators to share however they’d like afterward.

We’re no longer accepting applications, but stay tuned for our announcement!

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