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Community Architexts, a non-
profit arts organization, developed and implemented a public design program
within the depressed commercial district along Chicago Avenue in the Austin
neighborhood of Chicago. The program was intended to collect and articulate the
collective public voice of the largely invisible community of mothers,
daughters, and caregivers in this inner city neighborhood. Each sign is
inscribed with quotes drawn from outreach discussions on the roles of African-
American women, designed to draw attention to the myths and stereotypes held by
the outside community. The underlying objective was to uncover how the concept
of the nuclear family - the centerpiece of American ideology - affects a
community in which these expectations are not fulfilled. The three-stage public
design program appropriated and adapted a number of abandoned sign structures
atop small businesses along the streetscape. The double-sided sign structures
carry large-scale declaratives - readable from cars passing through - which
primarily speak to the outside community. Layered beneath and extending below
are longer statements - directed to local pedestrians - which primarily speak to
the community itself. The declaratives read as highlighted sound bites,
appropriating a mass media trope on behalf of the local neighborhood.

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