The Floating Museum

It is with immense pride we congratulate our very own arts and culture impresario Bianca Marks, on her inclusion in this year’s New City Magazine’s Art50. This Floating Museum season alone, Bianca’s expertise in coordinating our work with community partners and organizations was vital to projects and events such as, “DIGNIDAD” and “for Mecca” launch. She is a rising star in studio management, curatorial work and the caretaking or building stronger relationships between artists and the city.

Thank you for all you do, Bianca!



Slide 1 Photo: marlachinbat
Slide 2 Photo: Eric Perez

A MONUMENTAL FIRST.

On Sunday, August 30, we join Groundwaves at the Salt Shed for GoodWaves Music Festival, bringing our three Floating Monuments into a day of music, performance, and celebration.

This marks a first for us: “for Mecca,” “The Garden,” and “Founders” will be activated together at the same site. Each work brings its own multisensory and interactive qualities, adding another layer of place, movement, and experience to the festival.

We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Groundwaves!

GoodWaves Music Festival
Sunday, August 30, 2026
The Salt Shed | Chicago

Groundwaves Murs

Our Floating Monuments move across Chicago through the skill, energy, and commitment of an incredible team of docents.

Working both behind the scenes and in public, they help pack, transport, install, operate, monitor, troubleshoot, and deinstall the monuments at sites across the city. They also welcome visitors into the work, share the histories and ideas each monument carries, all while creating space for conversation, and connection.

Leading this work is our Project Manager Eric Perez, an artist, educator, photographer, and whose role spans project coordination, installation, and documentation. Eric leads the team responsible for activating our inflatable monuments while capturing the people, processes, and encounters that shape each activation.

Thank you to our incredible docent team for everything you bring to the Floating Monuments program and to every community that welcomes us.

Lu Polkinghorne - Lu :)
Jackson Fabiyi - Jackson Fabiyi
Jean HerardJackson Fabiyi
Liza Purcell -Jean Herardricka Burton
SteLiza 🐗oe - stevia roxanne.
Seyia Abe-stevia roxanne.e-Bell

Photos: ESeiya Abe-BellEric Perez

“for Mecca” installed on the former site of Cabrini–Green.

Once home to nearly 15,000 residents, Cabrini–Green became one of Chicago’s largest public housing communities before its demolition between 1995 and 2011. Its removal fundamentally reshaped the Near North Side, raising enduring questions about public housing, redevelopment, displacement, and who cities are ultimately built for.

“for Mecca” is a mobile inflatable monument inspired by the Mecca Flats, another Chicago landmark erased through urban renewal. Moving between sites of loss and transformation, the work connects histories that are too often treated as isolated events, asking how architecture can carry memory after buildings disappear.

Monuments don’t only mark what remains. They can also make visible what has been erased.

Thank you to our program partners Cabrini Art House, “poem(s) out my window” playlist curators FINDING IJEOMA and Coolout Chris , the Windy City Ramblers, and Cabrini’s own Jesse White Tumblers.

Images 1-2, 4-10, 12 by Eric Perez
Image 3 courtesy of Chicago Housing Authority , Photographer Kenneth Johnson, Jr. Kenneth
Image 11 courtesy of Cabrini Art House

On July 4, we were invited to bring DIGNIDAD back to Humboldt Park as part of El Jolgorio Boricua: No Kings, No Colonies, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s celebration of Puerto Rican culture, political expression, and self-determination.

Held at the Humboldt Park Boathouse, the gathering brought together live music, bomba y plena, salsa, spoken word, art, dominoes, food vendors, family activities, community leaders, and guest speakers in a shared call against colonialism.

We were especially honored to welcome DIGNIDAD curator Carla Acevedo-Yates, whose presence marked an important continuation of the relationships and vision that shaped the project from its earliest stages.

Thank you to the organizers, Puerto Rican Cultural Center , Alderperson Jessie L. Fuentes , Becky Medina , for inviting us to participate, and to everyone who gathered with DIGNIDAD throughout the day.

Photos by Eric Perez , 2026.

Ashwaty Chennat has played an integral role in shaping The Burroughs, our residency initiative exploring new models of artist support, cultural exchange, and community-driven practice. We’re proud to recognize her ongoing contributions as our Burroughs Residency Manager.

In this role, Ashwaty leads the development and day-to-day stewardship of the residency, working closely with artists, community partners, and our Residency Advisory Committee to cultivate meaningful opportunities for collaboration, research, and exchange. She has helped shape a residency rooted in care and connection.

Drawing on a decade of experience as an artist, programmer, facilitator, and administrator, Ashwaty has supported resident artists, advanced key partnerships, and guided the continued evolution of The Burroughs as a “residency without walls.” Her work has also helped cultivate international partnerships, including the recent exchange with Guest Artists Space Foundation (G.A.S.) and Yinka Shonibare Foundation.

Ashwaty

📸: Eric Perez

Timothy Quiles has helped shape some of our most ambitious public projects. We’re proud to recognize his ongoing contributions as our Shop Manager and Lead Fabricator.

In his role, Timothy oversees our fabrication processes and shop operations while guiding the technical and material development of our projects. He brings creativity, precision, resourcefulness, and care to every stage, strengthening not only what we build, but how we build it together.

Timothy began working with Floating Museum during River Assembly, bringing his experience as an artist, builder, and fabricator to projects designed to move through and gather communities across Chicago. Most recently, he led the fabrication of DIGNIDAD, transforming an ambitious artistic vision into a monumental public sculpture capable of traveling through the city.

We’re proud to recognize the vital role Timothy holds within Floating Museum and look forward to continuing to build together.

Timothy P. Quiles

📸: Eric Perez

Thank you to the National Public Housing Museum and Groundwaves for gathering with us around “for Mecca”.

Over several days, “for Mecca” held space at the National Public Housing Museum through sound, memory, and gathering. Musicians were invited to respond to the prompt “poem(s) out my window,” with playlists by Murs and Open Mike Eagle carrying reflections on neighborhood life, memory, and place. The activation continued with Groundwaves Generations, an intergenerational afternoon of hip-hop, artmaking, performance, food, and community.

We also shared a meaningful “Breaking Bread” gathering between the National Public Housing Museum and Floating Museum teams, surrounded by photographs selected from the museum’s archive.

Rooted in the legacy of the Mecca Flats, “for Mecca” invites us to listen to what lives in a building, a neighborhood, a song, a meal, a memory, a window.

Thank you to everyone who shared space with the work and helped carry these histories forward. “for Mecca” continues to move through the city this summer. We look forward to sharing the next activation soon.

Come see DIDNIDAD next on July 4th from 11-6PM at No Kings No Colonies held in Barrio Borikén, 1301 N Humboldt Dr, Chicago. The event will be a creative cultural and political demonstration in defense of Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination, self-actualization, and self-reliance, in addition to a celebration of solidarity across the hemisphere to confront war in the Americas.

DIGNIDAD explores how monuments can function beyond fixed, commemorative objects—reimagining them as forms that move through the city, pointing to erased or suppressed histories, and engaging public life in real time. Composed of concrete letters spelling “DIGNIDAD,” the work moves through the city as both object and message, a monument that does not stay still long enough to become invisible.

DIGNIDAD, 2026, 12’3”x63’x8’, wood, cement, fiber mesh, pigment, flatbed truck Carla Acevedo-Yates

Photos: Diana-Solís for BOB, Eric Perez

Thank you to Ambar Colón and the Chicago Sun-Times for highlighting DIGNIDAD ahead of its public launch this weekend!

Tomorrow, we hope you can join us and community partners in Humboldt Park for the debut of DIGNIDAD.

Details:
Saturday June 13th
12:30-2:30PM – Parade Debut
Puerto Rican People’s Day Parade with La Escuelita Bombera de Corazon, Humboldt Park, Division St.

3:00-5:00 PM Post Parade Program and Panel Discussion
Le Lo Lai Gallery 2716 W Division St

5:00-7:00PM – Evening Bombazo
La Sandwichera, 2721 E Division St

Thank you again to Chicago Sun-Times and Ambar Colón for sharing the story.

📸 Photo: Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times