DeKalb’s Arts In Action exhibit highlights Hispanic heritage

DeKALB – Arts In Action, a collaborative exhibit between the Ellwood House Museum and the DeKalb County History Center, offers viewers the chance to explore works from Latino artists across northern Illinois.

Although Hispanic Heritage Month runs through Oct. 15, the exhibit will be on display through December, aiming to merge art and history to help create change. On its website, the project includes not only artwork renderings but also educational resources and historical materials to reference.

People can view the exhibit at the Ellwood House Museum’s visitors center, 420 Linden Place, DeKalb.

DeKalb County History Center executive director Michelle Donahoe said it is all part of a project to center “unheard voices” in the community.

“This exhibit really allowed us to focus on Latino history in DeKalb County,” Donahoe said. “We have the panels in both English and Spanish, so we try to make it as accessible as possible to everyone. It is a free exhibit. It is a great opportunity for us to be able to share the contributions as well as some of the challenges of people from around the world that have come here and worked in Sycamore and DeKalb County. To share those stories through art has been really kind of a different way to approach this, the storytelling. It has been effective.”

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DeKalb resident Carolina Velandia talks about her work entitled “Dance, Love, and Art” Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, that is part of the Arts in Action exhibition at the Ellwood House Museum in DeKalb. The exhibit features work by local Latino artists and runs through the end of the year. (Mark Busch)

Chicago resident Juan Molina Hernandez created the piece titled “a home they built, a site of resistance.” The work makes reference to redlining, the labor of homemaking, rest and gender.

“This was the first time that I was commissioned to make a piece for an exhibition,” Hernandez said. “It was really nice to be invited and to look into the history of the Ellwood House and its history and DeKalb. ... In particular, I was looking at the history of redlining. I took that as an opportunity to think about ideas of homemaking, the ways in which people built their homes and places of belonging. Thinking about how despite redlining and these kind of really racist practices that prohibited different people from living in certain areas, people still managed to build their own places of belonging.”

Hernandez said his experience as a Latino who lives in northern Illinois has been positive.

“I feel like I’ve built my own community,” he said. “I feel like there’s always going to be people that feel excluded. I feel like there’s always going to be people that are afraid of people that are different. ... But I’ve kind of learned to build my own community. I’ve built my home here. I navigate those experiences on my own.”

Ellwood House Museum executive director Izabela Pieniadz emphasized how important it is to acknowledge what it means to be Latino in northern Illinois.

“The oral histories are a big component of this in being able to share those stories, and being able to record and save those stories to share with future generations is so important,” Pieniadz said.

DeKalb resident Carolina Velandia created “Dance, Love, and Art,” which is a mixed media piece that uses acrylic paint, recycled materials and paper on canvas.

“It’s really nice experience,” Velandia said. “I’m really honored to be part of the community of Latin artists here in DeKalb, Illinois. ... It’s really nice that there’s a space where artists can bring their stuff and be able to show what they are doing, what is their worth, what do they stand for.”

Velandia said the NIU community is welcoming of her. She said it hasn’t always been this way, however.

“There’s people all over the place that have that fear of someone that is different,” Velandia said. “But people will normally react really nice to me as soon I am able to talk and they realize that I speak English, that I’m a well-educated person, that I’m a human being. So that really opens door for me, especially in the beginning when I just recently arrived or people that would think that I am exotic.”

DeKalb resident Aaron Robertson created “24th and Laramie,” a graffiti piece that uses acrylic and spray paint on canvas. He said he draws inspiration for his art from his personal struggle with mental health.

“I was going through a great deal of depression at that time when I was making that specific piece, titled ‘24th and Laramie,’” Robertson said. “That title reflects about my past life where I’m originally from. That painting did mean a lot to me, especially with the title.”

Robertson said having his artwork commissioned and featured in a gallery feels a bit surreal to him.

“To me, it felt like a big accomplishment because I’m a self-taught artist,” Robertson said. “I come from nothing, and I became somebody that became of importance to the city of DeKalb as a local artist.”

Pieniadz said she’s proud of the Ellwood House Museum and the history center for bringing additional Latino voices into this project.

“For us to offer a space where they could hopefully see themselves in the museum and the ... traditional gallery space, I think, is what’s been really great about this,” Pieniadz said.

Donahoe said she hopes that the history center and the Ellwood House Museum’s efforts can expand.

“I feel like we’re at the tip of the iceberg in sharing and learning Black and Latino history, but we’ve also been working with the Potawatomi,” she said. “How do we share their story here? We have information about the Potawatomi in DeKalb, but we don’t have anything from their perspective. Even with the LGBTQ+ community, we know that people that live in our community are part of that community. We don’t have a lot of their stories here.”