Tempestt Hazel - January 2022

Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, artist advocate, and co-founder of Sixty Inches From Center, a Chicago-based arts publication and archiving initiative that has promoted and preserved the practices of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists, and artists with disabilities across the Midwest since 2010. Thanks to a lovely nomination from by several members of The Blackivists archivist collective, her curatorial work and work with Sixty was recognized with a 2019 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award from the Society of American Archivists (and even though it’s been over two years, she’s still in disbelief over this). She is also the Arts Program Officer for the Field Foundation. At Field she advocates for resources to be directed to Chicago-based BIPOC organizations and artist-led projects that value solidarity economies, cooperative leadership, community organizing, community-defined art forms, and self-determination. Tempestt was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, spent several years in the California Bay Area, and has called Chicago her second home for over 12 years.

A collection of materials from my personal archive, arranged on a wood surface in a row. This image was made to accompany a visiting curator lecture called "To Keep, To Care, To Leave Behind" at the University of Illinois at Chicago in November 2021. Photo by Tempestt Hazel.