Jim Duignan, founder and director of DePaul University’s Stockyard Institute, which brings the arts to youth in underserved Chicago communities, was one of two Chicago artists chosen to receive the top 2008 Artadia Award in Chicago.

Duignan was selected from among 15 finalists and hundreds of applicants. The recognition includes a $15,000 monetary award and lifetime access to Artadia’s national network of support. New York-based Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue encourages innovative artistic practice and meaningful dialogue across the United States by providing visual artists in specific communities with unrestricted grants and a national network of support. 

“I was really pleased to receive the award for my work on many levels. The attention from such a high-profile, contemporary arts body like Artadia makes it apparent that they recognize in Chicago a large constellation of practices and approaches to engaging the city artistically,” said Duignan, a faculty member in DePaul’s School of Education since 1992.

Duignan, an associate professor of visual arts in DePaul’s School of Education, founded the Stockyard Institute in 1995 to provide opportunities for collaborative art projects with youth, teachers, artists and residents in underserved Chicago communities such as the Back of the Yards, Austin and Rogers Park neighborhoods.

Since its inception, the Stockyard Institute has connected with more than 2,000 students and exhibited projects locally and around the world. In 2007, Duignan and the institute collaborated with the Hyde Park Art Center of Chicago to host the “Pedagogical Factory: Exploring Strategies for an Educated City,” which explored recent developments in critical education and social art and the relationship between contemporary life in the city and learning.

Artadia recently announced the winners of its fifth award program in Chicago after a jury process that employed nationally prominent curators, artists and critics. A panel of three internationally prominent jurors – Allison Peters Quinn, director of exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago; Kristin Poole, artistic director of the Sun Valley Arts Center in Sun Valley, Idaho; and Tumelo Mosaka, former associate curator of exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in New York – conducted studio visits in Chicago for three consecutive days in October with 15 artists who were selected as a short list from a record 654 applicants to evaluate the artists’ work. Duignan and sculptor Juan Angel Chavez won the top prize.

Since its founding in 1997, Artadia has awarded more than $2 million to more than 200 artists in Boston, Chicago, Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Artadia Awards 2008 Chicago are supported by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, numerous individuals and the Artadia board.