Bullies picked on Davion Mathews at his Austin elementary school. He could have turned to a gang for protection or dropped out of school. Instead, he created a multi-media art project that expressed exactly how he felt. Incorporating lyrics from a popular tune, Mathews used a taxi cab equipped with a satellite and text messages to explain space, language and boundaries.

Every time the cab crossed borders from one area to the next, the message would change. Instead of being angry and afraid, Mathews and his entire neighborhood were excited about the power of language and creativity. As a student of the Stockyard Institute, founded by DePaul University professor Jim Duignan, he learned how to interpret his experiences through art.

“Generally, kids hanging out in the streets and doorways are just artists without a program,” said Duignan, who established the institute as an ongoing arts initiative that creates collaborative art projects with students in underserved Chicago communities. As an associate professor of Visual Arts & Education at DePaul’s School of Education, Duignan draws upon pedagogy and the arts to inspire youth to learn in different ways and on varied levels. “To me, DePaul’s mission is about educating the poor,” he said. “That’s what the Stockyard Institute really stands for.”

Established in 1997 in the Southside’s “Back of the Yards” community, Duignan positioned the institute as a way to answer the questions students have about life. “I use the institute as a kind of laboratory for me to bring in writers, artists, composers and filmmakers to work with the youth,” said Duignan. “It’s a school that’s based on projects that respond to their questions. It’s about asking them ‘who are you?’ ‘What do you need to know?’ The projects are a conversation over a long period of time that helps them figure it out.”

A large portion of Duignan’s DePaul students assist with the institute’s projects, firmly connecting the future teachers to the value of reaching underserved communities. “They work with the kids, reading with them, helping them draw or planning history books of the neighborhood,” said Duignan. “They learn to help people as well as educate.” About a dozen other DePaul faculty also assist with projects by teaching and generating ideas.

Working in the Back of the Yards, Austin and Howard area communities, the institute coordinates with schools, youth centers, cultural organizations and community centers to plan projects. Much of the work is conversational, with Duignan discussing ideas for as long as a month before anything is started.

Over the years, the institute has connected with more than 2000 students and exhibited projects everywhere from the DePaul Art Museum to 40 European countries. According to Joseph Gardner, a DePaul assistant professor and the director of education for the Howard Alternative High School, the institute’s projects spark a level of interest rarely seen in traditional programs.

“The institute started radio and graphic arts programs at Howard,” says Gardner. “Students didn’t need any cajoling; they connected with it and they wanted to do it.” This is the response that Duignan believes is necessary for students to really learn. “We want kids to be spirited and alive and to love school,” he said. “If they don’t have the arts in their lives, they usually make other choices that we complain about.”

Besides engaging youths with art, the institute also publishes “Area,” a biannual magazine that addresses Chicago’s cultural and social justice issues while also encouraging community-building. A photographer and short filmmaker as well as an educator, Duignan knows that it requires innovation to reach students today. “I think the arts saved my life,” he said. “If I didn’t have the arts to interpret my experience, I probably would have gone somewhere else [other than school]. It’s what I see in a lot of young people who don’t have the arts.”

Duignan currently is working on a book about the institute as well as a tour of “Binders Archives,” an exhibit of documents from the institute’s projects, which is showing in Slovakia and Germany. He believes that the institute touches students in ways that traditional education does not. “When kids are violent and disconnected, it’s because they don’t have any tools to use. We give them the tools.”

Additional information about the institute is available at: www.stockyardinstitute.org.