[Communications] NOW JUNE 15: Edra Soto / La Casa de Todos / "Everyone's Home"

[Comfort Station Marketing]

Hello writers and editors!

I'm sharing an updated press release for local multidisciplinary artist *Edra
Soto'*s forthcoming installation for Comfort Station,
* La Casa de Todos/"Everyone's Home." *
Edra and her team have been hard at work hand-forging this incredible
installation, and sometimes the process takes longer than imagined!

*The new opening date is Saturday June 15, 2024*, featuring celebratory
music and dancing from Afro-Puerto Rican Ivelisse Diaz
<https://www.3arts.org/artist/ivelisse-diaz/> & band at 5pm sharp.

Thereafter, we have a *whole season* of related programming happening in
our space and on our lawn throughout the summer, before the exhibition
closes on Dia de Muertos.

Full details pasted & attached below. The opening event is also linked on
our calendar
<https://comfortstationlogansquare.org/calendar/2024/6/1/la-casa-de-todos>.

Thank you for considering coverage of this milestone exhibition at Comfort
Station!


*Lauren Viera (she/her)*
*Marketing Director, Comfort Station*
*www.comfortstationlogansquare.org
<http://www.comfortstationlogansquare.org/>*




*Comfort Station Presents: Edra Soto’s La Casa de Todos / Everyone’s Home *Edra
Soto’s lawn installation opens Comfort Station’s summer season on *June 15,
2024*


CHICAGO, IL — Comfort Station is pleased to announce La Casa de Todos /
Everyone’s Home , an exhibition by Edra Soto that will reimagine the
existing installation SCAFFOLD.  With an updated opening date of June 15,
2024, the exhibition will be accompanied by various programs throughout the
summer and fall.

Soto’s practice draws from her Puerto Rican roots to instigate
conversations about history, diasporic identity, and constructed social
orders. La Casa de Todos builds on her ongoing project “Graft,” which
integrates architectural intervention and social practice.

With this public installation, Soto invites the community to celebrate a
shared home together. La Casa de Todos, or “Everyone's Home,” reconfigures
Via Chicago Architects + Disenadores’ work titled SCAFFOLD, transforming
its structure by overlapping abstract carved panels, delineating safe zones
destined to house public gatherings and moments for celebration.

The decorative motifs carved to the panels are directly sourced from
representations of Puerto Rican rejas (wrought iron screens) commonly found
throughout the archipelago. The introduction to a structure painted with a
multicolored palette, a new approach to Soto’s work, was sourced from the
archipelago's residential architecture. Her representations of rejas propose
and celebrate the cultural value of Puerto Rico's lower- and middle-class
communities. Soto’s works investigate and make visible the relationships
between Puerto Rican cultural memory, its African and Black heritage, and
the threads of colonial historical lineage of the United States.

"It's such an honor to work with Edra Soto on this project,” says Kitty
Rauth, Comfort Station’s artistic director. “I deeply admire her unwavering
warmth and penchant for connecting people, bringing them together and
giving artists a space to present their work within her own. Her practice
is one of gift giving and reciprocity, and La Casa de Todos is an exciting
backdrop for my hope of relationship building and mutual support this
summer and fall."

Beginning with the opening of La Casa de Todos in mid-June, Comfort Station
will be hosting a series of related performances and programming, many of
which are co-produced by the Palenque LSNA neighborhood association of
Logan Square. The first of these performances will be presented by Ivelisse
Diaz and band BomPleneras at 5PM on the evening of the opening, June 15.
Events occurring throughout the summer and fall include: a series of “Drag
Me To Life” performances hosted by Cindy Nero; a time-based projection
installation with Kat Bawden curated by Inés Arango-Guingue on July
13; a dinner
hosted by Txa Txa Club on July 26; a special iteration of improvisational
performance project Freedom From, Freedom To on September 6; and a closing
Dia de Muertos celebration organized by Opera-Matic youth.

La Casa de Todos is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Terra Foundation for American Art, and is part of Art Design Chicago, a
citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation that highlights
the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

For more information, contact:
Kitty Rauth
Artistic Director, Comfort Station

kitty at comfortstationlogansquare.org
comfortstationlogansquare.org <http://comfortstationlogansquare.org/TBD>



ABOUT COMFORT STATION
Comfort Station activates a historic building with public, community-driven
programs that foster vibrant connections at the intersection of art and
life. Since 2011, it has operated out of a 1920s city-owned building that
was once intended to be a space for travelers to stay warm while waiting
for public transportation. That legacy fuels its mission to act as a porous
and public gathering space for a variety of creative communities.




*Comfort Station*2579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago IL 60647
comfortstationlogansquare.org <http://www.comfortstationlogansquare.org/>
marketing at comfortstationlogansquare.org

Instagram: @comfort_station <https://www.instagram.com/comfort_station/>
Facebook: comfortstationlogansquare
<http://facebook.com/comfortstationlogansquare>
LinkedIn: comfortstationlogansquare
<http://linkedin.com/company/comfortstationlogansquare>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://chicagocommunitygardens.org/pipermail/communications_chicagocommunitygardens.org/attachments/20240528/4b3f814c/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: CS PRESS RELEASE EDRA SOTO JUNE 15.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 173257 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://chicagocommunitygardens.org/pipermail/communications_chicagocommunitygardens.org/attachments/20240528/4b3f814c/attachment-0001.pdf>