CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Rows of red tulips have blossomed on vacant lots in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood.
The gorgeous garden is meant to draw attention to an ugly past.
Amanda Williams' art installation is called “Redefining Redlining.” Williams, a visual artist who trained as an architect, uses color and architecture to explore the intersection of race and the built environment.
Last fall, she and hundreds of volunteers and residents planted 100,000 tulip bulbs at 53rd and Prairie where homes no longer stand. The flowers are visual reminders of the practice where banks would determine how much a property was worth based on the racial makeup of the neighborhood.
Williams created the installation to highlight the detrimental impact of redlining while also inspiring ideas about who and what can reinfuse joy, beauty and value into Black neighborhoods.
The MacArthur Foundation fellow said she chose flowers to give people time to fall in love with them and then get inspired when they go away.
“I tend to do a lot of work that is temporary, also really beautiful but fleeting…people really have to kind of make a commitment to engage when it's going to be there,” Williams said.
“I hope that they will keep things like this here all the time, flowers and things, because it does something — it raises the vibration,” says Sakin Hill, South Side resident.
During multiple visits to the site to check on the flowers after bad weather, Williams said she's met neighbors and heard stories.
“I have a long hug. We have a great conversation. They tell me a story,” Williams said.
She is expecting a lot more of that during an event Saturday afternoon that she described as part-thank you to all the volunteers and part-block party.
“It’s absolutely beautiful. I was driving and I had to get out of my car to look at it. I stopped and looked at every single block of the flower installation and I think it’s just beautiful,” says Hill.
You can learn more about her project here.
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