Experimental Makers Workshop

Weinberg/Newton Gallery, a non-commercial gallery dedicated to promoting the work of social justice causes, today announced plans to host a free and open-to-the-public community event to celebrate the culmination of the Experimental Makers Workshop on Saturday, August 21 from 2 to 5 p.m. The Experimental Makers Workshop Community Event encourages visitors to interact with the garments constructed in the workshop by artists Isaac Couch, Joseph Lefthand and Sarah Whyte, which will be exhibited in the gallery’s storefront windows from August 16 through 28. The artists’ previous work will also be on view during the event to illustrate how their individual practices informed the pieces made in collaboration during the workshop. The event will take place at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, located at 688 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Additionally, the event will feature an art-making activity for all ages in the gallery’s courtyard and program space. Led by the Weinberg/Newton education team, this hands-on activity welcomes visitors to screen-print their own t-shirt with an exclusive design designed by Couch, Lefthand and Whyte. The gallery will provide all supplies, including fabric markers to encourage participants to personalize the design and make it their own.

The Experimental Makers Workshop, which began on June 28, explores impactful alternatives to institutional violence and navigates sustainable forms of social and political change. The workshop is initiated and led by Chicago-based artist Joseph Lefthand, in collaboration with Chicago-based artists Isaac Couch and Sarah Whyte. Through fashion, fiber and conceptual art, the group draws from practices informed by historical narratives of structural violence to imagine innovative approaches to nonviolence. 

About Weinberg/Newton Gallery
Weinberg/Newton Gallery is a non-commercial gallery with a mission to collaborate with nonprofit organizations and artists to educate and engage the public on social justice issues. Through artwork and programming, the gallery provides a vital space for open discourse on critical contemporary issues facing our communities. Connecting artists with social justice organizations, we work to drive change and cultivate a culture of consciousness.

About the Artists
Isaac Couch, originally from western Kentucky where corn is farmed and coal is mined, has brought his southern perspective to the northern city of Chicago where he lives and works. After earning a Bachelor's degree in Merchandising Apparel and Textiles from the University of Kentucky, he went on to earn his Master’s of Design at SAIC. While attending University of Kentucky, Couch learned how to express his passion for issues such as the social relations within his country and climate change as it relates to the fashion industry. Following graduation, he was awarded with both the Luminarts Fashion as well as the Fashion Council Graduate Fellowships.

Joseph Lefthand is an artist, administrator and cultural advocate based out of Chicago. Descended from the Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos and Zuni tribes, Lefthand works at the intersection of art and social practice, exploring the role of embodied movement, "performance-as-theory", and communal inquiry as sustainable modes of discourse in confronting institutional and state violence.

His most recent work includes producing a series of performances, artist talks, and community dinners exploring the role of U.S. foreign policy and military intervention in shaping the immigratory experiences of Latin and Asian artists, in partnership with the Justice Hotel at 6018|North art center. Lefthand’s past work includes acting as performance advisor, rehearsal director and reenactment trainer for Dread Scott's 2019 "Slave Rebellion Reenactment" in partnership with London-based filmmaker John Akomfrah; performance advisor and instructor for Chicago-based artist Jefferson Pinder's 2019 productions "This is Not a Drill" and "Red Summer Road Trip", a series of site-based performances exploring the collective memory of militancy, classism and race in the Black American experience; and co-creator/co-performer of "Procession: Return to the Body", a multi-modal landscape created at the Chicago Cultural Center in conjunction with the 2019 National Veterans Art Museum Triennial & Veteran Art Summit. 

At once a healer, advocate, investigator and scholar, Lefthand's work is in continual dialogue with the cultural and historical implications of war, militarism, violence and resistance.

Sarah Whyte is a Chinese American fiber artist and painter whose work questions her identity. According to paperwork, she was abandoned two days after being born and was brought to the Social Welfare House of Pingxiang city, China. She was then adopted from Jiangxi province, and brought to the United States where she grew up in Virginia and later moved to Texas. Her work is an exploration of self, trying to make sense of what she knows and doesn’t know about her family, ancestry, history and identity. She recently received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been the studio assistant for the artist Anne Wilson and Aram Han Sifuentes. As an emerging artist, Sarah’s work has been exhibited in various venues in Chicago.

History of Weinberg/Newton Gallery
In 2016, David Weinberg Photography became Weinberg/Newton Gallery. The change reflected the values of The Weinberg/Newton Gallery Family Foundation, which has been led jointly by David Weinberg and Jerry Newton since 2009.