Andrea Carlson: Still Here

Installation

• On view

• Invitation Wall, visible from Taylor Street on the exterior of the National Public Housing Museum

• Free
• Press Release

Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe) offers the mural Still Here: Zhegagoynak as a way to connect the histories of Black and Indigenous removal and displacement from the land where the museum is located.

The word “Chicago” is a ghost of the Potawatomi word Zhegagoynak, which means “the place of wild leeks or onions” or, more directly, “the skunk’s root.” Chicago was also once a place where medicine plants grew and were harvested for comfort and healing. Carlson invites us to listen to the land that is now called Chicago so that we might hear the traces and whispers of this history along with many other painful histories of displacement.

Carlson also offers this work as a proposition and a gesture to the possibility of healing through truth-telling. The original is on view in the museum until it is presented as a gift to the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi.

Invitation Wall

Art is an invitation—an invitation to see, think, and feel in a new way and to be changed by the experience.

The artworks that grace the museum’s east-facing facade change periodically, and each one reflects a commitment to radical hospitality—making all people feel welcome and valued, and removing barriers that prevent people from participating in a community. All are invited.

Support for Still Here: Zhegagoynak is provided by the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, with funding from the Mellon Foundation as part of the Chicago Monuments Project.

This installation is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that aims to expand understanding of Chicago’s creative communities, past and present.

The mural was also part of the National Public Housing Museum’s inaugural exhibition, Still Here: Stories of Displacement (April 4–July 6, 2025).