Innovation 80's CoGen initiative supports projects that intentionally encourage younger and older participants in underserved Chicago communities to create art together and to mentor each other.
As they collaborate, they form meaningful relationships across generations and recognize talents and skills that each contribute. The mutual respect generated combats the ageism which isolates and disadvantages everyone--younger, older, and in between.
For communities, CoGen connections can be sustaining; for individual participants, they can be transformative.
CoGen Programs
Since Summer 2023, Innovation 80 has funded fifty-two CoGen projects run by twenty-six small arts organizations in Chicago. Innovation 80 now funds only CoGen programs.
Strands of Wisdom CoGen Program
Strands of Wisdom, a multi-generational sewing program, will foster cross-mentorship between teens and adults from the Marshall Field Garden Apartments, bridging racial, economic, and generational divides. Running for 26 weeks in 2025, the program will pair teens with elders in creative collaborations, allowing them to share skills and perspectives while building meaningful connections. Through hands-on projects and discussions on wisdom themes such as confidence, humility, and discipline, participants will strengthen community ties. Each session will culminate in a joint art exhibit at the Art on Sedgwick Gallery, showcasing their collaborative efforts.
Here is a link to the Innovation 80 Lounge and Gallery, which will feature a tapestry created by the Strands of Wisdom program.
Co-Generational Healing Arts
This arts-based program serves sexual violence survivors, a multiply disadvantaged population facing significant barriers to long-term healing resources. The journey of reclaiming voice, rebuilding trust, and ongoing healing transcends age. As they create art together, older participants mentor younger participants by sharing long-term healing strategies developed over decades, modeling that healing is a lifelong process. Younger participants mentor older participants by introducing contemporary frameworks for understanding trauma, community-building strategies, and offering fresh perspectives on boundary-setting, breaking silence and challenging stigma. Stipends make participation possible regardless of financial considerations.
Step & Sing Program
BandWith Chicago’s Step & Sing is an intergenerational choral program that brings together ten youth and ten older adults to share music, movement, and cultural storytelling. The program fosters meaningful intergenerational relationships through collaborative music-making. As reciprocal mentors, seniors share lived history and traditions, while youth introduce contemporary musical trends and digital tools. High-quality music education promotes wellness, creative expression, and pride in cultural heritage. Each of two sessions (15 weeks in spring, 12 weeks in fall), will culminate in a public concert.
Passages CoGen Program
CDE has always wanted the opportunity to create a dedicated program that helps bridge the gap between our younger and older artists. Our Passages cohort consists of 15 seasoned artists 65 and older, and 15 artists 20 to 25 years old who are beginning their careers in dance, theater/storytelling, photography, visual art, or music. The program will create cross-disciplinary pairs of visual and performance artists, as well as artists at different stages in their careers. Pairs will collaborate on a piece of art that illustrates a moment in a “rite of passage” that helped them get where they are in their life or career. Each pair will meet at least 10 times, in addition to participating in 3 full group meetings to work, discuss and create their art. CDE will present a culminating event, featuring an art gallery and performances.
Reimagining Jazz CoGen Project
Reimagining Jazz music – A Sound for All Ages. This10-week program pairs ten young music students and ten older members of their Westside community to explore how the vital art form of Jazz music reflects the human experience. Its influence spans generations and cultures, shaping fashion trends, dance, and societal movements. Each pair brings their own individual perspectives and experiences as they reimagine a creative variation of songs by their favorite artists. As each pair develops a concept of the Jazz genre and exchanges experiences, they will form meaningful relationships that connect their generations through the music. The program will conclude with a workshop in which the reimagined pieces will be performed for the community.
CoGen Project... Entre Generaciones
This program partners with BlueCross BlueDoor Neighborhood Center to raise mental health awareness and reduce stigma within the Latinx community through storytelling and live performances. Latinx seniors and youth will be paired to share personal stories, fostering empathy and understanding across generations. Mental health challenges within Latinx culture will be openly discussed, creating a safe space for dialogue. Select stories will be featured on illuminated lightboxes and debuted at a live theatrical performance during Latin Heritage Month. The event will also include a public discussion on mental health and intergenerational connections, promoting community support and collaboration.
Neighbor Stories Program
This 8-week storytelling program focuses on bringing together two generations in Back of the Yards & surrounding areas to discuss the stories, histories, experiences and understandings of their neighborhood. In collaboration with Peace & Education Coalition, 10-16 participants (five to eight over 55-year-olds, and five to eight under 25-year-olds) will meet weekly for 2 to 3 hours to learn the art of storytelling, sharing their lived experiences in Back of the Yards. The program will be bi-lingual, offered in Spanish and English, bringing together both Latine and Black community members from across the area. Participants receive a stipend to ensure retention and strong attendance throughout the program. FST will provide snacks at meetings and a meal at the final storytelling event, adding to the celebration of community stories.
Innovation 80 CoGen Project
FreshLens’ CoGen program is a 7-week project-based class for photography students that pairs retired adults with high school students. Through interviewing each other, pairs discover common interests which lead to their designing and developing a photography project together. Beyond the class itself, this program is meant to foster a co-generational, mutual learning relationship and produce a space for intergenerational collaboration. This represents a mini step to combat the pervasive issue of ageism.
See freshlenschicago.org/cogen-showcase for detailed creative results of these pairings.
Seasoned CoGen Program
Seasoned: a Culinary Art CoGen Program is a hands-on cooking program that brings together older adults and youth in a structured, welcoming space to build community and connection across generations. Participants meet for two hours per week over 10 weeks. Each session they practice basic cooking skills as they prepare and enjoy a meal together. Over the course of the program they will explore a range of cuisines and build connections as a group. We anticipate serving 40 participants over two cycles—one in the fall; one in the spring.
Intergenerational Art Expression Project
Innovation 80 will fund the “Intergenerational Art Expression Project” with Green Star Movement (GSM), an organization with whom I 80 has been working for several years. GSM uses mosaic public art to build teamwork, tell stories, and beautify shared space to revitalize diverse urban communities, guided by resident and business needs.
GSM’s CoGen project brings together youth and older adults from Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly (LBFE), an organization providing friendship to older adults who no longer have friends or family to rely on. GSM teaching artists will lead 24 monthly sessions of youth and older adults in a mosaic-making project. GSM will also use virtual methodology (DIY home-kits) to engage homebound elders. The project will create two mosaics--one for the LBFE facade, one in a neighborhood on Chicago's southwest side. Besides creating meaningful and lasting pieces of art, this program will offer a safe space for elders and youth to share stories and connect. Through this co-generational focus, GSM and I 80 continue their commitment to engage marginalized, under-represented communities in the arts, enhancing quality of life for both seniors and youth.
Innovation 80 CoGen Program
Inheritance Theater Project (ITP) creates art in and with communities, building relationships across divides by inviting community members to co-create original theater.
Through Summer 2025, ITP will focus on strengthening relationships between siloed communities on the south and west sides of Chicago. A group of local artists hired by ITP along with ITP national team members, will spark conversations based on First Amendment issues (Freedoms of Religion, Assembly, Speech, etc.) to better understand and honor the multiplicity of stories that exist among neighbors. By bringing together local artists, activists, civic and religious leaders, and community members from across Chicago's south and west sides, ITP will invite everyone's voice into the playmaking process. The resulting play will be performed, free of charge, for audiences at local Chicago venues early in 2026.
Innovation 80 serves as Catalyst for ITP in developing this Chicago Project.
CoGen Living Newspaper
Jackalope Theater Company will put youth and seniors in the Edgewater community together for a ten-week (20-session) program designed for participants to create theater pieces based on local current events newspaper articles. In the past, as an Arts Partner in Residence with the Chicago Park District, JTC has run separate classes for each age cohort but did not have funding to pilot a CoGen Living Newspaper class. In the CoGen program, teaching artists will lead discussions and exercises to enhance communication and connections across generations and weave these into a short play that will be performed for the community. The program is offered for free to all.
Reimagining 16th Street CoGen Project
The Reimagining 16th Street initiative brings together youth, seniors, and others in North Lawndale to co-create art that reflects the community’s past, present, and future. Through a series of 16 intergenerational workshops, participants collaborated on posters, design exhibits, storytelling, and a large sculpture, fostering connections between different generations. These art pieces were revealed at the Reimagining 16th Street Festival in October, where both young and old shared their creative visions and stories. They will be installed in November along with three sukkahs from the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival. The program emphasizes a process that breaks down barriers and builds co-generational connections through shared artistic expression and dialogue.
Innovation 80 CoGen Program
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project was designed to promote well-being among LGBTQ+ people by bringing together older and younger LGBTQ+ adults for two semesters of storytelling, dialogue, and art making. The project connected diverse cohorts of LGBTQ+ participants who would not otherwise have had a chance to interact, providing them with space, time, and support to learn to engage with each other across their differences.
During the spring semester participants worked in small intergenerational groups to develop art skills, and imagine, plan, coordinate and create a collaborative art piece. A public art exhibition showcased the work. Through this process, participants—both younger and older—developed deeper understandings of themselves and each other as artists, makers, thinkers, and community members.
In the magical space of art making and dialogue, relationships flourish. Currently, data is being systematically analyzed to determine the impact of this program.
CoGen Creations & Multigen Modules
Lifting Hearts with the Arts, a 501(c)(3) organization formed by high school students, has developed two CoGen programs that Innovation 80 is proud to fund.
"CoGen Creations" is designed to facilitate intergenerational learning through art-making, encouraging open communication to counteract stereotypes and increase understanding between generations. Based on mutual interests, high school students are paired with residents in senior care facilities. Pairs get to know each other by engaging in dialogue, expressing themselves through different mediums. Each pair creates a final art piece and brief statement for display, along with photos of the artist pairs. The hope is for participants to build long-lasting, intergenerational friendships that will counteract ageist stereotypes and enrich their lives.
"Multigen Modules" uses art to facilitate conversations between youth volunteers and senior residents of Chicago care facilities to explore and delineate best practices of intergenerational work. Volunteers will supplement their understanding by interviewing care facility staff, and other experts in the field of aging, then co-create storyboards for 1 or 2 short informational videos to convey their collective findings. Youth volunteers will then digitally animate the storyboards and test their clarity and effectiveness as teaching modules. The modules will be available to senior care facilities to help them efficiently onboard prospective volunteers, providing information about how to work collaboratively with seniors. The aim is to broaden intergenerational understanding and foster meaningful relationships across generations.
A Space of Symbiosis
Red Line Service is the only art organization in Chicago led by people who have a lived experience of houselessness. Red Line Service utilizes the arts to foster a sense of community, inclusivity, and mutual support for people currently experiencing houselessness or housing insecurity. Innovation 80 is supporting A Space of Symbiosis which will take place in North Lawndale and will focus on fiber arts with participants. Here, older and younger housing insecure or unhoused community members will come together in an intensive 12-week summer program to foster mutual connections as they work collaboratively to create art in and for the garden. While younger participants receive nurturing and care, older adults deepen their sense of self agency, sense of purpose and, together, all participants create a deep community of care.
South Chicago Dance Theatre - The Josephine CoGen Dance Project
The Josephine CoGen Dance Project encourages older adults (ages 65+) and teens (ages 14-18) to explore and share their own family histories and stories with each other through dance. South Chicago Dance Theatre (SCDT) will partner with RUSH Hospital in Chicago to engage senior citizen participants and Chicago public high schools to select younger participants. In summer, 2025, over the course of ten weeks, SCDT professional dance artists will lead youngers and olders in free weekly workshops to share life experiences, develop an artistic practice through dance making and collaborate across generations on pieces of choreography. The program will culminate in a sharing at the Dance Center at Columbia College.
Innovation 80 Cogenerational Project
Innovation 80 has supported the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival since its inception four years ago. The 2025 program pairs 5 North Lawndale community organizations with 5 architect / designers, each team designed and built a sukkah (an outdoor room for the Jewish harvest festival Sukkot). Participants gain "design literacy"; each organization will own and repurpose its sukkah for use in its mission. All sukkah design teams stimulate cogenerational creativity, but this year two teams are dedicated as CoGen sukkahs.
CoGen Cohort
CoGen in the arts is new, so we are all learning as we move forward. To share that learning, explore new ideas and address challenges that arise, Innovation 80 has created a Cohort of the leaders of all the Cogen programs we fund. Kamelia Hristeva, the founder and executive director of Green Star Movement, chairs the Cohort, which meets quarterly. Through these meetings a collaborative community has developed. Participation in the Cohort is a benefit, beyond funding, that Innovation 80 offers new grantees.
The Cohort is actively considering various initiatives for spreading the word about the power of working across generations in the arts. We will update you about this effort as plans progress.
Background and Benefits
While we live in the most age-diverse society in history, most of us spend our time with others who are around our own age. Daily activities don’t offer many ways to make meaningful connections with people of other generations. A recent survey by Cogenerate (Cogenerate.org), found that people of all ages want to engage with other generations. Not only does this help counteract ageism, but multiple studies have shown that how youth experience elders affects how they themselves will age, both mentally and physically. The challenge is in creating opportunities to connect.
Ageist attitudes add barriers to connecting across generations. Younger people often view elders as “past it” “too slow” and ”know it all’s”; older people often see youngsters as “lazy” “entitled” and “self-absorbed.” These ageist attitudes are reinforced constantly through advertising, social media, and all forms of entertainment. These attitudes become self-fulfilling prophecies, affecting both the mental and physical health of people as they age.
Providing opportunities to share ideas and create together gives each generation a new pair of glasses. Younger people can start to see and appreciate what older people offer: life experience, perspective, access to resources. Older people can start to see and appreciate gifts younger people bring: fresh ideas, a contemporary context, tech savvy.
CoGen grants use engagement with the arts to offer intentional opportunities for intergenerational interaction. In doing so, CoGen will help to combat ageism.
The arts are a particularly fertile soil for growing intergenerational relationships. As Phylicia Rashad observed, “Before children speak, they sing. Before they write, they paint. As soon as they stand, they dance. Art is the basis of human expression.”
Impact of CoGen
Measuring changes in attitude as a result of CoGen programs is a complicated endeavor. We are making an effort to assess such changes by asking participants to fill out simple questionnaires at the beginning and end of their programs. We engaged two graduate students from the University of Chicago to analyze the results of the questionnaires from the first five CoGen programs. Below is a brief summary of their findings. For anyone interested in the detailed analysis, they can find it here: Full CoGen Report
Collaboration enjoyment and pride in outcome scores increased markedly in participant responses from the pre-program to the post-program phase. These findings show that, in both generations, participants' expectation of joy and pride in working with another generation were greatly boosted through the program, highlighting the program's effectiveness in fostering meaningful engagement and rewarding collaborative experiences across generations.
Significantly more young participants believed that seniors could understand their perspectives after the program.
Senior participants exhibited a significant reduction in their perception that young participants were uninterested in engaging with them.
Taken together, paragraphs 2 and 3 above indicate that these intergenerational programs helped dismantle some negative stereotypic assumptions.
Young participants' perception of seniors' inflexibility showed a decline after program participation, but this shift was not statistically significant. This suggests that while the programs encouraged more positive attitudes across generations, some pre-existing stereotypes persisted.
A sentiment analysis further revealed that the vast majority of responses conveyed positive emotional tones, supporting the quantitative findings that participants found the programs enjoyable, meaningful, and impactful.
Overall, the analysis suggests that intergenerational arts programs can enhance collaboration, foster intergenerational empathy and mutual appreciation. And the meaningful connections formed across generations reduces negative bias.
While these preliminary conclusions are helpful and encouraging, further analysis with more programs and larger numbers of participants may help confirm or refute these findings.