It’s On Us: A Day of Art and Action
featuring an Illinois Voices 250 Community Recording Booth
When
Jun 13, 2026
4:00pm–8:00pm
Cost
FREE
Registration is required.
This event is presented by the Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
It’s On Us is a day of art and action on Saturday, June 13th.
Mark your calendars for the day's free activities, which include workshops, resources for resistance, soapbox speeches, and an evening performance featuring Jamila Woods, Taína Asili, and Damon Williams, with art programming by Maria Gaspar, Kristiana Rae Colón, and the Social Justice Initiative.
It’s On Us invites us to imagine: what blooms when ICE melts? The answer is on us to manifest together. Under authoritarian conditions and in times of repression, we are encouraged to desensitize ourselves, to ignore what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.
On this day, we call our neighbors to awaken their senses and one another: to see clearly, to listen deeply, to touch the ground and each other in solidarity, to taste the sweetness of shared life, to smell the earth that sustains us. By engaging our senses together, we embody liberation and practice radical imagination, building community through mutual aid, mobilization, and solidarity.
When ICE melts, what blooms next is not inevitable; it is something we grow and cultivate together. Freedom begins when we remember that it’s on us.
Note: An Illinois Voices 250 Community Recording Booth will be available during this festival.
SCHEDULE
9:00 AM - 2:00 p.m.: Neighborhood Activations
18th Street Casa de Cultura, HANA Center, Kuumba Lynx, Sistas in the Village, and more.
4:00 - 6:00 p.m.: Arts Activities, Workshops, and Resource Fair
Including the Mobile Street Art Cart with William Estrada, banner making, paper flower making, art programming by Maria Gaspar, workshops, tabling by community organizations, an Illinois Voices 250 Community Recording booth, and more.
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.: Performances and Soapbox Speeches
Featuring a second line procession with music and dance, leading in to performances by Jamila Woods, Taína Asili, Kristiana Rae Colón, and Damon Williams, and short speeches by Richard Wallace (Equity and Transformation), Rey Wences (Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights), Palestine Feminist Collective, and more.
This festival is supported by Illinois Humanities, Woods Fund Chicago, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, Crossroads Fund, and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago.
Learn more at sji.uic.edu or email ItsOnUsChicago@gmail.com.
Contact
Suite 650, 125 South Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60603
312.422.5580 312.374.6787 Fax
Illinois Humanities is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Illinois General Assembly [through the Illinois Arts Council], as well as by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.
Illinois Humanities respects the privacy of its audiences and will at no time sell or distribute personal information to any party not directly affiliated with Illinois Humanities and its programs.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed by speakers, program participants, or audiences do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH, Illinois Humanities, our partnering organizations, or our funders.
© Copyright 2026 Illinois Humanities