Title: Peace by Piece

Site: Beth-Anne Life Center
1140 N. Lamon Avenue, Chicago

Artists: Nina Smoot-Cain and John Pitman Weber

Assistant: Tracy Van Duinen

Community Participants: Yolanda Arnold, Matabias Biles, Dewayne Brown, Jason Hardin, Kevin Jones, Bianca Lemon, Marcus Murphy, Dennis Reynolds, Juanita Reynolds, and Asha Williams

Sponsors: Chicago Public Art Group, Bethel New Life, and Gallery 37

Year: 1998

Scale: 120 square feet

Materials: Broken ceramic tile

Information: Peace by Piece is installed in the courtyard at Bethel New Life’s Beth-Anne Campus. It celebrates the strengths and rituals of African American life through interpreting community photographs in cracked-ceramic mosaic. Discussions with youths about how their families came north provided images of the Big Dipper--the direction guide for runaway slaves, and a train engine representing the Great Migration. A set table and a frieze of collard greens recall shared family traditions. Family photographs contributed by the youths are rendered in ceramic mosaic.
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