Jazz Fence at The Great Migration Sculpture Garden

Gallery Guichard and the Purpose Foundation Illinois Institute of Technology

Collaborators Jiaming Sun, Yu Si, Ron Henderson

Recognition ASLA Honor Award for Student Community Service, 2018

Jazz Fence explores cultural sustainability in The Great Migration Sculpture Garden which was conceived by the community to commemorate the migration of six million African-Americans out of the rural South to the urban North from 1916 to 1970. Many settled in Bronzeville on Chicago's South Side where residents also created jazz, gospel, and blues music.

The Great Migration Sculpture Garden is located on the site of the former Palm Tavern. Howard Reich, art critic for the Chicago Tribune, wrote, "It would be difficult to overestimate the (Palm Tavern's) role in nurturing black musical culture in Chicago and beyond. This was the place where ideas were exchanged, tunes discussed, and collaborations conceived." Jazz Fence amplifies this musical history with rhythmic and colorful patterns that recall, but do not mimic, musical scores.

Jazz Fence received the 2018 ASLA Student Honor Award for Community Service and was designed and built by IIT Landscape Architecture students Jiaming (Jamie) Sun and Yu (Fish) Si and Professor Ron Henderson along with Bronzeville community members.