CCRx is thrilled to provide custom handmade Imagination Journals for the second year in a row to the Young Chicago Authors who are participating in the 2025 Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival!
Rooted & Radical is an annual six-week literary festival of youth poetry, featuring showcases and events open to the public. Youth poets from the Chicago area perform original solo and group pieces for thousands of audience members. The festival runs from Feb 1 thru March 16 and is a great way to experience young minds and artistry as youth poets to use their voices to celebrate one another. They perform at venues throughout Chicago and you can see all the dates and purchase tickets here.
The 2025 theme, Looking Forward and Looking Deeply, explores how rapid changes in technology and media shape our world, urging participants to reflect on their role in the future and their connections with one another. They ask the questions; how are you engaging with the world? How are you engaging with one another? What does the future hold, and what is your special place in it?
Our handmade Imagination Journals reflect the theme through diecut images and words. The cardboard backing is from deconstructed binders, the lined and decorative paper and pictures are from deconstructed magazines, books and journals, and the covers are made with file folders and vinyl samples diecut into glasses and words that evoke the theme.
But how did we make over 600 of these notebooks?
With the help of volunteers from The Honeycomb Project and Volunteering Untapped!
Working under the direction of CCRx's Kathryn Trumbull Fimreite and Rebecca Memoli, with assistance from Nakia Brown, the two groups cut out the patterns, glued the covers, then assembly-lined to collate, punch and bind. It was fun to learn how to work the binding machines! Many hands made light work that was a team effort and greatly rewarding!
Now all the young Chicago authors can fill them with words of wisdom and hope, looking forward and deeply.
Interested in getting some journals for your next event? Or helping out with projects like this?
Learn how on our new Sponsorship Page or email us at info@creativechirx.org
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