What is Listening Across Neighborhoods?
Listening Across Neighborhoods is a unique opportunity to gain skills with audio technology and public speaking while exploring the city of Chicago and learning more about your neighborhood.
- Discover: Learn about Chicago’s unique neighborhoods through sound.
- Engage: Participate in soundwalks, workshops, and public presentations.
- Create: Contribute to the Neighborhood Sound Archive, preserving the acoustic heritage of your community.
Is There Compensation?
Earn $250 for completing the program and making your public presentation.
Why Listen?
- Make a Difference: Identify neighborhood investment and disinvestment through sound.
- Develop Skills: gain life skills in active listening, sound recording, storytelling, and public speaking.
- Build Community: Connect with peers and different neighborhoods and share your findings.
Who Can Join?
High school students and youth: from all Chicago Neighborhoods.
When & Where Is Listening Across Neighborhoods?
WORKSHOPS (must attend all)
- August 15: Douglass Branch Library, 3353 W 13th Street
- August 22: Legler Regional Library, 115 S Pulaski Rd
- August 29: Humboldt Park Branch, 1605 N Troy St
- September 12 or 19: St Ignatius College Prep, 1076 Roosevelt Rd (only one date)
PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS (at least one of the following options)
- October 10: One Lawndale Arts and Activism Incubator, 3615 W Cermak Rd
- October 17: Austin Branch, Chicago Public Library, 5615 W Race Ave
- October 24: Lead Listening Conference, St Ignatius College Prep, 1076 Roosevelt Rd
Participants must attend ALL August Sound workshop dates, one of the September Public Speaking Workshop dates—either September 12th OR September 19—and participate in at least one public presentation to complete the course and receive payment.
Download the 2026 LAN Flyer!
QUESTIONS? Contact our teaching artists at lan.nonopera@gmail.com
LAN Staff
Allen Moore, teaching artist
Allen Moore is a Black Interdisciplinary Artist, Experimental Turntableist, Educator and Youth Mentor. His recent body of work investigates both the audio and visual element of Black death and grief analyzing the signifiers of Blackness through performative improvisation and experimentation. Moore has exhibited and performed across the greater Midwest, including performances at Experimental Sound Studio, Elastic Arts, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Science and Industry.
E’mon Lauren, teaching artist
E’mon Lauren, teaching artistE’mon Lauren in Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate and the author of Commando (Haymarket Books, 2017). Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center, The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2019), and elsewhere. She currently serves as Director of Artistic Programming at the #LetUsBreathe Collective in Chicago.
Kyle Gregory Price, teaching artist
Kyle Gregory Price lives within the realms of chamber composition, children’s music, experimental music, free jazz, writing, and performance art. He co-designs and produces programming and performances for an array of audiences and venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Newberry Library, and the Chicago Park District and he has worked with ensembles including the Merce Cunningham Dance Troupe and multi-Grammy-award nominated Third Coast Percussion.
Phillip Purkett, leadership and public speaking trainer
Phillip Purkett is a senior moderator and leadership coach with over two decades of expertise as a facilitator and instructor specializing in leadership and organizational development, as well as collaboration, effective communication, individual consultation and team training. He serves in leadership roles at the local, district, and regional levels in his church. He is a community activist and neighborhood coordinator.
Eric Leonardson, project manager, Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology
Eric Leonardson, a Chicago-based audio artist, is President of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology and Vice-President of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. He is an Adjunct Professor in Art and Technology/Sound Practices at SAIC. As a performer, composer, sound designer, and inventor, he performs internationally and promotes acoustic ecology, connecting communities through sound, listening, and the environment.
Christophe Preissing, project director, NON:op Arts and Humanities
Christophe Preissing is the founder and artistic director of NON:op Arts and Humanities. He is also a composer, sound artist, producer and artistic instigator, whose work tackles social, political, and cultural issues. Since 2020, he and NON:op have been focused on facilitating radical access, experimentation, and creativity across communities while working collectively towards a more just society.
