On the occasion of HCL’s 15th Anniversary, HCL has launched a new line of merchandise featuring a bespoke illustration by Jasjyot Singh Hans. 

With our mission rooted in experimentation, discovery, and the exploration of creative process, we are taking this opportunity invite our community to not just buy a t-shirt, but to be part of the creative process: Please join us for this two-hour "make it and take it" tie-dye workshop!

This Art/Access Lab gathering invites artists with disabilities, and anyone exploring their relationship to disability, to join an afternoon of meeting fellow artists and making alongside each other.

Celebrating 15 years of bringing people together around the creative process

Featuring:

• A performance by avery r. young

• Pop-up photo studio with Jovan Landry

• Vinyl sets by Regina Martinez aka selective listening

• Silent auction

• Open bar & Light bites

Rhynoceron is a puppetry piece exploring the parallel between a past when an animal thought to be myth suddenly appeared, and a future where an animal known to be real suddenly vanishes. This piece, currently in development as part of KT Shivak’s residency with HCL, features a lifesize rhinoceros puppet based on the history of this animal that sparked an obsession both to possess it and to consume its image.

High Concept Labs presents a showcase of new work in progress from each of the 2024 Artists In Residence cohort:

Bradford Chin
Christopher Knowlton
Haruhi Kobayashi
Carissa Lee
KT Shivak
plus Allen Moore

Glow: HCL Film & Projection Night is more than a film screening. This one-night all-ages event, complete with classic movie theater concessions, highlights various approaches to creating light-based work. Featuring film, projection, music, mashups that blend sound and visuals, and conversations with artists, this event illuminates the visual side of the HCL Artist in Residency Program.

Art/Access Labs foster a vibrant disabled artist ecosystem through cross-discipline and cross-impairment professional development activities.

Work in Progress Showings provide artists in the disability community an affinity space to share and discuss developing projects. These gatherings offer a flexible platform for artists to share, test ideas, and develop perspective on their work through community exchange.

agua viva draws inspiration from the natural flow of water, starting with an exploration of amplified water sounds and the sonic possibilities of the human body. This creates a rich soundscape, fostering a dynamic, horizontal conversation between the performers and immersing the audience in an aquatic dreamscape.

Dance Sound Sound Dance is an evening of collaborative performances by DJs, sound artists, dancers, and movement-based artists intended to inspire movement with one another.

The event will begin with a short welcome and introduction to the Art/Access Lab series presented by HCL and UDF. The rest of the event will consist of short showings interspersed with time to mingle with fellow artists with disabilities.

As part of the Mana Contemporary Spring Open House, HCL Artists in Residence are activating the HCL Lab with projection, dance, movement, sound, puppetry, and more.

A series of bimonthly workshops highlighting women, trans, and non-binary sound artists and practitioners.

Stop by HCL to scavenge through an array of equipment, furniture, and supplies that we’ve been holding on to for a bit too long.

From Earth to Sky, Sky to Earth
A loving invitation to expand grief into joy

Explore collective healing to shift into ease, groundedness, and joy. Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy brings together offerings of performances, live music, movement therapy, plant medicine and celebration.

Chicago Adavu Meetup is a community for bharatanatyam dancers in Chicago to practice their technique and learn from each other. At least 1-2 years experience with bharatanatyam is recommended.

A series of bimonthly workshops highlighting women, trans, and non-binary sound artists and practitioners.

Stop by HCL to scavenge through an array of equipment, furniture, and supplies that we’ve been holding on to for a bit too long.

holding stones is a love story expressed in sound. Regina will be joined by guest percussionist Daniel Villarreal inside a visual world woven together by painter, elior, and floral artist Lori Mendoza. Welcome set by DJ NinaNite.

LabE grew out of a convening of Chicago’s disabled dance artists in late 2022. A year later, we’re expanding the program to serve the wider disability arts community. 

Join us for a convening of Chicago’s disabled artists where we’ll think together about the future of the program. What supports would be most useful to developing your artistic practice? What do you feel is most needed to continue building Chicago’s disability art community? Let’s reflect on what we’ve accomplished so far and continue building LabE as a platform to support Chicago’s disabled artists.

The convening will be facilitated by Maggie Bridger, Andy Slater, and Reveca Torres and is open to Deaf, disabled, sick, neurodivergent, and Mad artists (including those working through their relationship to these categories) working in all mediums.

High Concept Labs, in partnership with Experimental Station, presents new works by the 2023 HCL Fellow Artists in Residence. Each featured artist has selected one piece to present that has formed throughout their two year residency with High Concept Labs. The energy, ideas, concepts, feelings, thoughts, and processes of each of the six featured artists have coalesced and fused into the new works being presented across a full day of festivities at Experimental Station.

Come and see the results of this fusion.

In the lead up to our Convening of Chicago’s Disabled Artists on December 3, we are hosting a pair of social gatherings for the community. These are relaxed spaces where you are encouraged to come and go as needed and just spend some time with your fellow disabled artists.

For this month’s LabE, we will meet entirely online via Zoom.

Allen Moore’s “The Black Arcade” Jam Sessions are a series of performative explorations of grieving through the sound making and visual artifacts. Building on Moore’s interest in afrofuturism and the sonic aesthetic of the black imagination, his Black Arcade sessions offer a caring and immersive soundscape that invites deep listening and creates space for personal reflection, grief, and renewal.

Waveforms is a semi-annual sound and multimedia festival organized by graduate students in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Sound Department.

Join us for a dynamic evening of community spirit at our Fall Aperitivo!

Our Fall Aperitivo is an event where friends, artists, and the community can come together for a fun evening to support the continued success of High Concept Labs. We are excited to ignite a fresh wave of support for HCL now and into 2024.

Join us for a Garba Gathering. Garba is a communal circle dance honoring mother earth, the divine feminine and cyclical nature of being.

Come dance Garba and Dandiya with us. All ages and experience levels welcome. Dress up, dress down, we don’t care. We are just excited to share space with each other!

In the lead up to our Convening of Chicago’s Disabled Artists on December 3, we are hosting a pair of social gatherings for the community. These are relaxed spaces where you are encouraged to come and go as needed and just spend some time with your fellow disabled artists.

For this month’s LabE, we will meet entirely in-person at Experimental Station. For those unable to attend in-person events, we will hold a virtual social gathering as November’s LabE event.

Cíclos is an immersive action (an experiment), by Sofía Fernández Díaz and Sofía Gabriel that plays with the idea of performance as a ritual to honor the innate female connection with nature. This ritual invites the audience to sit around the performers, listen, observe, and experience the flow of improvisation.

LabE is a series of monthly cohort meetings addressing particular needs of disabled dance artists.

The LabE gathering is designed to be a safe, disability-centric space where artists can come together to share a work-in-progress, try out new ideas, workshop concepts, and experiment with new scores.

Allen Moore’s “The Black Arcade” Jam Session #2 Grief in Stereo is a performative exploration of grieving through the development of visual artifacts and sound making. Open to all to listen, share love and pay tribute to loss. Open for collaborations.

A showcase of contemporary and experimental music being made in Chicago today.

Saturday, September 16 will feature Shi-An Costello, Mabel Kwan, Allen Moore, Tim Corpus & Alyssa Arrigo, and William Jason Raynovich.