Field Trip / Field Notes / Field Guide is a trans-disciplinary consortium of Fellows from The University of Chicago (UChicago), The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and Northwestern University. The program is intended to build an interdisciplinary community that engages Chicago's vibrant urban environment, providing a unique platform for exchange and connect across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

The consortium will provide an open framework for graduate students and recent alumni to explore and digest their local environment as a collective body while outlining the unique perspectives and methodologies of their disciplinary studies—whether that be art, architecture, art history, the humanities, social science, or science. The consortium is intended to augment the institutional support offered to MFA alumni and PhD candidates as they pursue their research “in the field,” asking that they consider sharing, communicating, and formulating their work within the context of an interdisciplinary community.

Beginning in the fall and meeting on a monthly basis over the course of an academic year, graduate students from the participating institutions will be asked to partake in and self-initiate a series of seminars, expeditions, lectures, readings, and discussions. A series of field trips, initiated by the consortium Fellows, will be organized to explore the proximities and intersections of the Fellows’ distinctive approaches to research and practice. The consortium's activities are intended to provoke unexpected exchanges, build collegial relationships, and allow for unique encounters that would not typically occur within a university setting. 

A “field guide” produced each spring will collect and present the Fellows' research over the course of the year, highlighting and examining their distinctive approaches to research and practice while on site and working “in the field.”

Affiliated institutional representatives and administrators:

University of Chicago (UChicago)

Julie Marie Lemon, Program Director and Curator, Arts, Science + Culture Initiative

Naomi Blumberg, Assistant Director, Arts, Science + Culture Initiative

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)

Beate Geissler, Associate Professor, Department of Art

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)

Pablo Garcia, Director, Earl & Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration

Jaclyn Jacunski, Research Associate, Earl & Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration

Northwestern University

Irena Haiduk, Assistant Professor, Art, Theory, and Practice

Matt Martin, Program Assistant, Art, Theory, and Practice