Gallery 901

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

Gallery Reception:

Saturday, November 7th
6:00 - 8:00 PM

Open Studio Project - Gallery 901
901 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL

On view through November 30, 2026

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 exhibition 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.