Maria Gaspar: We Lit the Fire and Trusted the Heat (After Angela Davis)
July 23, 2025
UIC Gallery 400
Maria Gaspar has long interrogated the spatial and social dynamics of Chicago’s Cook County Jail, the largest single-site jail in the US. With its enormous presence in her native Little Village neighborhood, Gaspar has intervened with the jail's fortified walls to bring its visibility and invisibility into view. For this commissioned performance, Gaspar invited vibraphonist Thaddeus Tukes to activate her sonic sculpture made from salvaged iron prison bars from the now-demolished Division I building, the oldest section of Cook County Jail, immersing audiences in prison "abolition as a durational process with different speeds." I discussed the affective nature of the work with the artists and with Jimmy Soto, a paralegal exonerated after 42 long years of incarceration in Illinois. Watch here.
Press: Chicago Tribune | WTTW | UIC Today
Photos by Ji Yang.