Gallery 901

Exhibitions at Gallery 901 feature artists and community organizations whose work reflects Open Studio Project’s vision that art is a path to wellbeing. This vision includes artists of all kinds, from professionals whose work has been shown in commercial galleries and museums, to self-taught artists who have never shown their work before. As a community-based gallery, our exhibitions are designed to foster dialogue, reflection, and connection, and we invite all audiences to engage with the diverse perspectives on display.

CURRENT EXHIBITION

Men Who Color: The Artwork of Northside Housing Men’s Shelter

Opening Reception:
September 12 | 3-5pm
901 Sherman Ave, Evanston

On view until September 30th

When North Side Housing and Supportive Services opened a new shelter for men experiencing homelessness in December 2024, the building was a model of innovative, sustainable, and trauma-informed design. Seeking effective new ways to support men on their transitional housing journey, North Side Housing partnered with Open Studio Project to provide weekly Art & Wellness groups, with generous support from the Peoples Church of Chicago.

Each week, our facilitators bring an assortment of art materials to the shelter and provide a compassionate and creative space for residents to engage in open-ended art-making. The open studio model allows participants to create whatever they want from the materials provided, from collage to drawing, painting, even sculpture. This type of autonomy and choice is essential for a population whose circumstances are often out of their own control.

As participants came and went and stayed and talked, or just simply created art in silent camaraderie, we noticed a clear pattern: a particular type of creative freedom in which each participant not only engaged in their own art making but also mentioned finding solace, focus and emotional expression.

“Men Who Color” features an assortment of drawings, paintings, and works on paper from Art & Wellness participants who, with consent, contributed works that they made during our time together. There were many participants whose creativity we cannot show, as they came and went before having the opportunity to know about this show. This group is open and ongoing, with work still in progress. One of our participants likened his art making to “walking down a road,” an apt metaphor for both the open-ended creative process and the journey to permanent housing.

Ati’s Dream

Longtime Peoples Church member Ati Feldmanis was a vigorous and effective advocate for men experiencing homelessness on the north side of Chicago. A social worker and author, Ati was passionate about serving the needs of his unhoused neighbors in Uptown, and was a frequent visitor to the men’s shelter operated by North Side Housing and Supportive Services at the historic Preston Bradley Center. When North Side Housing unveiled plans for the new men’s shelter in Rogers Park, Ati was first to support the partnership with Open Studio Project to provide therapeutic art groups that were both trauma-informed and creativity-centered. Ati Feldmanis died in December, 2025, having lived an exemplary life of service. His dream of supporting the practical and spiritual needs of unhoused men lives on in Open Studio Project’s Art & Wellness program at the Rogers Park shelter. We dedicate the exhibition “Men Who Color” to Ati’s memory.

UPCOMING GALLERY SHOW

Things We Carry:
What Children Create. What We Hold. How We Connect.

Opening Reception:
Intergenerational Art Experience + Fundraiser

Saturday, October 3rd
1-4pm: Family Reception
6-8pm: Adult Reception

On view through November 30, 2026

Proceeds benefit Rooster & Hen Resources, a nonprofit providing grief education through art and story.

Things We Carry

Everyone has a story, a memory, and a treasured object. These are the things we carry with us. And when it’s hard to put them into words, we can share them through art.

Things We Carry is an intergenerational community art experience and fundraiser presented by Rooster & Hen Resources, a nonprofit providing grief education through art and story. The exhibition grows from creative programming with more than 200 summer campers, inviting children to explore feelings, memories, connection, and the objects that hold meaning for them.

Children’s individual drawings and ideas became four large collective works of art. But the children’s work is only the beginning.

Throughout the exhibition, visitors are invited to become part of each piece. Add your own feeling to a mirror. Follow a thread from a child’s story to an adult’s treasured object. Create a small clay sculpture of something you treasure and add its story to the collection. Or write a story of loss or memory on a paper link and add it to a growing chain that makes visible the invisible weight we may carry together.

The objects displayed alongside the children’s artwork belong to adults and hold stories of their own. As the exhibition unfolds, the lines between artist and audience, child and adult, individual and community begin to blur.

Because we all carry something.

We carry feelings. We carry memories. We carry the people and places we love. We carry loss. And sometimes, without realizing it, we carry pieces of one another’s stories.

Things We Carry invites us to pause, create, listen, and connect—and to discover that while some things we carry are deeply personal, we don’t have to carry them alone.

Rebecca Wu

Rebecca Wu is an educator, children's author, artist, speaker, and founder of Rooster & Hen Resources, a nonprofit providing grief education through art and story. A Chicago native and lifelong educator with more than 20 years of experience in education, Rebecca brings together her background in teaching, storytelling, and visual art to create meaningful ways for children, families, and communities to explore difficult experiences.

Rebecca holds a Master’s in Teaching and an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and was a licensed elementary educator. Her work centers on the belief that art and story can create a gentle "side door" into conversations that can be difficult to begin directly—especially conversations about grief, loss, memory, and change.

She is the author of Moving In Forever, a children's book created to help families and children begin conversations around hospice, loss, and continuing bonds. Through Rooster & Hen Resources, she develops creative programs, educational resources, workshops, and community experiences that help adults feel more equipped to support children navigating life transitions.

For Things We Carry, Rebecca brings together her work as an educator and artist to create an exhibition that begins with children's voices but belongs to the whole community. Through collaborative art-making, storytelling, treasured objects, and interactive installations, she invites people of all ages to explore what they carry—and discover the connections that emerge when we make space for one another's stories.