About /

Floating Museum is an arts collective that creates new models exploring relationships between art, community, architecture, and public institutions. Using site-responsive art, design, and programming we explore the potential in these relationships, considering the infrastructure, history, and aesthetics of a space. Floating Museum is co-directed by avery r. young, Andrew Schachman, Faheem Majeed and Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford.

avery r. young

Andrew Schachman

Faheem Majeed

Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford

^{Best known as a poet, songwriter, and performer, multi-disciplinary artist avery r. young is also an award-winning teaching artist who mentors youths in the crafts of creative writing and theater. He has been an Arts and Public Life Artist-In-Residence at the University of Chicago and has written curriculum for Columbia College Chicago, Young Leeds Authors, True Star Magazine, and Chicago Public Schools Art Integration Department. Young’s poems and essays on HIV awareness, misogyny, race records, and art integration have been published in The BreakBeat Poets, The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, AIMPrint, and other anthologies.}

^{︎

avery@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Andrew Schachman designs environments, infrastructures, and installations. He is the executive co-director of two organizations that are experimental spaces for delivering arts and culture within existing metropolitan networks: Floating Museum and Fieldwork Collaborative Projects. Trained as an architect, he designed and managed projects for the offices of Zaha Hadid, Perkins and Will, Carol Ross Barney, and Doug Garofalo. His projects have received numerous awards including the Distinguished Building Award from the American Institute of Architects and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design. Principal of Studio Andrew Schachman, he recently completed the design for the Palais de Tokyo’s exhibition, “Singing Stones,” in the roundhouse of the DuSable Museum of African American History. Andrew is a Lecturer in Urban Design at the University of Chicago.}

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andrew@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Faheem Majeed is an artist, educator, curator, and community facilitator. He blends his unique experience as an artist, non-profit administrator, and curator to create works that focus on institutional critique and exhibitions that leverage collaboration to engage his immediate, and the broader community, in meaningful dialogue. As part of his studio practice, he transforms materials such as particle board, scrap metal and wood, discarded signs, and billboard remnants, breathing new life into these often overlooked and devalued materials. As its former executive director (2007-2011), Chicago’s South Side Community Art Center serves as Majeed’s primary muse. Majeed also serves as a co-director and founder of Floating Museum.

Majeed is a recipient of the Field and Macarthur Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago Award (2020), Joyce Foundation Award (2020), the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2015), and the Harpo Foundation Awardee (2016). Majeed’s work has been exhibited in numerous institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Malmö Konstmuseum, SMFA at Tufts, The High Line, and the Hyde Park Art Center. Majeed received his BFA from Howard University and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at the UIC.}

^{︎ faheem@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford is a co-director and co-founder of Floating Museum. He is also an interdisciplinary artist, Director of the School of the Arts, and Associate Professor of Visual Art at Indiana University Northwest. His work has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago, Malmo Konstmuseum, Chicago Cultural Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Palais de Tokyo Hors les Murs, the DuSable Black History Museum and the Hyde Park Art Center, among other spaces. He has held fellowships from the Sculpture Space, the Illinois Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Brown Foundation Program at the Dora Maar House, and the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting. His work has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Harpo Foundation, the Propeller Fund, the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, the Field Foundation, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Stephanie Field Harris Charitable Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, an Indiana University New Frontiers Grant, and a Fulbright Fellowship in Sicily, among others. Reviews and coverage of his work have been included in outlets like the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Newcity, Hyperallergic, Artforum, CBS News, NPR, the Chicago Sun Times, USA Today, Dezeen, and the Chicago Tribune. He recently served as an artistic co-director of the 5th edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.}

^{︎ jeremiah@floatingmuseum.org}

Bianca Marks

Eric Perez

Gail Ana Gomez

Paola Ferrario

^{Bianca Marks is an arts and culture impresario who supports the development and realization of complex artistic projects, working at the nexus of artists, institutions, and cultural infrastructure. Her work focuses on translating ideas into action through coordination, partnership-building, and sustained attention to process.

Described as “the engine that makes art move in Chicago,” Bianca unifies artists, organizations, and partners across planning, communications, and execution - aligning creative vision with the relationships, resources, and logistics required to bring ambitious work into the world. Her approach is grounded in care and a deep respect for the labor that sustains collective cultural work.}

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bianca@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Eric Perez is an artist and educator in the city of Chicago. Primarily a photographer, his work focuses on his experience of being a Marine during his two deployments as part of the Global War on Terror. As Project Manager for Floating Museum, he deploys his skills in photography and videography to document Floating Museum’s projects. He also leads a team in the deployment of two inflatable monuments throughout the city of Chicago.

Perez earned his Associates in Art at Triton College in 2016 and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with a Bachelors in Fine Art in 2019. Upon graduating, he was selected to take part in Chicago Artist Coalition's Launch Residency (2019). He was selected to be a National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellow (2022) with the emerging Veterans Art Movement. In 2023, he was awarded the annual David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation award and residency at the Hyde Park Art Center. Perez's work has been shown in UIC's 2019 BFA thesis show, Triton College Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery400, and the Hyde Park Art Center.}

^{︎

eric@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Gail Ana Gomez is an arts administrator who has been working with museums and arts organizations as an editor and project manager for the last fifteen years. She has overseen numerous museum exhibitions, publications, and artist commissions, from locally focused historical projects like The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side 1960–1980 (2018), to publications with a global reach like Imaginable World's: Art, Crisis, and Global Futures (2022).Her research interests include language justice and inclusive language practices in museums and accessible design for exhibitions and publications. She holds an M.A. in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and bachelor's degrees in studio art and art history from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW).}

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gail@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Paola Ferrario is a community builder and strategist who transforms ideas into sustainable change. With experience spanning community development, urban planning, and resource mobilization, her work bridges gaps between people, organizations, and visions. Paola’s participation in four America's Competitiveness Exchange cohorts and her Mashav scholarship reflect her commitment to innovation and collaboration.

Rooted in her belief in inclusivity and sustainability, she creates opportunities for meaningful engagement that empower communities to thrive.}

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paola@floatingmuseum.org}

Ashwaty Chennat

Timothy Quiles

^{Ashwaty Chennat is an artist, programmer, facilitator, and administrator with a decade of experience developing platforms for performance, cultural exchange, and community-driven programming. She has collaborated with organizations including Mandala Arts, SpaceShift Collective, and the Chicago Park District, and has supported numerous artists in the realization of their independent projects. Their work is grounded in cultural exchange, social histories, and the contemporary creative expressions of diasporic communities. A highlight of their practice was establishing and directing the Mandala Makers Festival for four years in Chicago’s “Little South Asia.”

Ashwaty’s thoughtful, collaborative leadership and commitment to supporting artists and their practices led them to their current role as Floating Museum’s Burroughs Residency Manager.}^{︎
ashwaty@floatingmuseum.org}

^{Timothy Quiles is a multi-disciplinary artist with over 30 years of experience that includes painting, illustration, wood working, graphic design, metal and plexiglass sculpting.

For 20 years Timothy worked as a superintendent/union carpenter overseeing high-profile, multimillion-dollar commercial and large scale residential concrete projects. His most recent notable projects include the Obama Presidential Center and the Bally’s Casino. He has been recognized for his leadership in all project phases, from planning through completion, with a focus on quality, safety and inclusive work environments.

Timothy brings a unique and diverse experience along with specialized knowledge in the industry of construction and fabrication.}^{︎
timothy@floatingmuseum.org}

Board Members

Steven J. Gray practices corporate law with concentrations in corporate securities, public finance and investment management. Mr. Gray’s clientele includes both publicly traded and private companies, municipal bonds issuers, underwriters, investment management firms and private funds. He regularly represents clients on matters such as securities offerings, merger and acquisitions, governance and regulatory compliance.

Mr. Gray is active in providing legal services to pro bono clients, which include nonprofit organizations in the arts such as Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Floating Museum, Fieldwork Collaboration Projects, and The Arts Palette, and social service organizations such as FENIX Family Health Center and NO BARRIERS USA.

Mr. Gray is a 1987 graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (M.B.A., with honors, 1982; B.A., Great Books Program, 1979).

Craig Stevenson is a Chicago social alchemist passionate about the mind-body-spirit connection and the transformative power of community. As a catalyst, he uses arts and culture, codesign, creative placemaking, and multicultural relationship-weaving as tools for social change and building thriving, sustainable communities.

Craig is Managing Director and Co-Chair of Open Architecture Collaborative Chicago, which operates at the intersections of culture, regenerative futures, and spatial design to produce equitable public interest design outcomes that positively contribute to broader social, natural, and urban systems. He is also part of the Under the Grid Collective, developing 15 blocks of arts and culture beneath the CTA Pink Line.

Widening his web of social impact, Craig works with Urban Growers Collective and Green Era, whose missions center on food sovereignty and green circular economies through built environments, environmental landscapes, and cultural programming.

As a creative changemaker, Craig has taught at public and spiritual institutions, fostered alliances for policy change, and collaborated with creatives to produce spatial interventions, arts, and architectural experiences. His work has generated city-wide connections and belonging for biennials, civic institutions, and organizations focused on public space and green infrastructure.

Andrea Yarbrough is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and educator born and raised on the south side of Chicago. She stewards the collaborative placekeeping initiative, in c/o: Black women, pushing forward a Black feminist praxis of erecting sites of care by elevating the importance of witnessing and cooperative building as forms of care work.

Her practice transforms everyday materials into art objects, exhuming the invisibility of understudied histories. Andrea earned an MA in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a cooperative developer, providing technical assistance to creatives, construction and real estate entrepreneurs, and residents seeking to build transformative ventures that support the public good.

^{For general inquiries: info@floatingmuseum.org}

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