Where We Come From, Where We Are Going

Where We Come From, Where We Are Going, 1992

Olivia Gude

56th Street and Lake Park Avenue

            Funded by a New Forms Regional Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chicago Public Art Group and community residents, this is an oral history mural by University of Illinois at Chicago professor and CPAG artist Olivia Gude. In the spring of 1991, the artist stood outside the Hyde Park Metra train station with a tape recorder in hand and asked people where they were coming from and where they were going. Their answers, whether literal, emotional or spiritual, were incorporated into the mural in the same location where they were originally asked. More than a dozen figures who capture the diversity of the Hyde Park neighborhood are featured on a muted blueish-gray background. In a 1996 interview, Gude also commented, "It's also probably one of the few murals you'll ever see where people are wearing coats." The mural was restored in 2009.