Since 2020, Innovation 80 has funded projects of small Chicago arts organizations that work with underserved communities, using art to foster participants' life skills. Most of the projects funded to date have focused on young people. CoGen expands Innovation 80’s initial focus by funding projects that intentionally encourage younger and older participants to generate art together.
CoGen is a diversity effort. Working across races, ethnicities, and gender identities improves equity. So, too, does working across generations. Doing so fosters communication, and shines a light on how widespread ageism isolates and disadvantages all elements of our society–younger, older and in between.
CoGen programs encourage younger and older participants from underserved communities to form meaningful relationships and produce a cogenerational art project. CoGen allows people to recognize talents and skills that different age groups bring to the table.
People younger than 25 and older than 60
work together
over an extended period of time
to co-create a project in the arts
that utilizes both groups’ skills and/or perspectives
and generates mutual respect
benefiting participants, their organizations, their communities
For communities these connections can be sustaining.
For individual participants, the connections can be transformative.
CoGen Pilot Program
Innovation 80 will pilot CoGen in 2023 - 24 by funding programs proposed by a small group of its current grantees plus initiatives by organizations experienced in co-generational work. Thereafter, we will seek applications from a wider group of organizations.
Thus far, the following projects have been accepted as part of the pilot project:
FreshLens/Innovation 80 CoGen Project
This summer program pairs five youth from the FreshLens photography curriculum with five older volunteers known to Innovation 80, for the purpose of connecting and forging relationships across generations. Participants will meet weekly for 8 weeks and will begin with the partners interviewing each other and with the students sharing some of their work. For subsequent sessions, everyone will be asked to take a single photo on an assigned topic (e.g., plants, children) and come prepared to share it and a story about it with their partner.
The goal of the program is to encourage meaningful interactions between the partners in which each may learn from the other to recognize, examine and counteract stereotypes that abound in our society about people of a different generation than one’s own. This would represent a mini step to combat the pervasive issue of ageism.
Green Star/Innovation 80 Intergenerational Art Expression Project
Innovation 80 will fund the “Intergenerational Art Expression Project” with Green Star Movement (GSM), an organization with whom I80 has been working for several years. GSM uses public art to build teamwork, tell stories, and beautify shared space to revitalize urban neighborhoods, focusing on diverse community areas, and partnering with stakeholders to identify resident and business needs.
GSM’s CoGen project will integrate youth on the south and west sides with participants from Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly, Chicago (LBFE), an organization focused on providing friendship to elders who no longer have friends or family to rely on. GSM teaching artists will lead 24 sessions of youth and elders in a co-generational mosaic-making project, meeting monthly or more frequently at LBFE or GSM’s studio. GSM will also use its new virtual methodology (DIY home-kits) to engage homebound elders. The project will result in a mosaic for the LBFE facade.
The “Intergenerational Art Expression Project” program will not only create a meaningful piece of art that will last decades to come, but also foster a safe space for elders and youth to share stories and connect.
Intergenerational programming continues both GSM’s and Innovation 80’s commitment to engaging marginalized, isolated, under-represented communities in the arts. It aims to enhance the quality of life for seniors while providing transformative experiences for youth.
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project is designed to promote well-being among LGBTQ+ people by bringing together older and younger LGBTQ+ adults for storytelling, dialogue, and art making. Connecting diverse cohorts of LGBTQ+ participants who would otherwise never have a chance to interact, the project provides them space, time, and support to learn to engage with each other across their differences.
The work takes place over two semesters. The fall semester focuses on storytelling and dialogue while the spring semester is dedicated to The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Art Program, (supported by Innovation 80’s grant) in which participants work in small intergenerational groups to connect meaningfully with each other, further develop their art skills, and imagine, plan, coordinate, and make a collaborative art piece. The program ends with a public art exhibition showcasing the work. Through this process, participants - both younger and older - come to deeper understandings of themselves and each other as artists, makers, thinkers, and community members.
In the magical space of art making and dialogue, new understandings and relationships flourish.
Sukkah Design Festival Cogenerational Project
Innovation 80 will support the second annual Chicago Sukkah Design Festival in North Lawndale as it integrates cogenerational goals into two of its five sukkah design teams. Participants will again engage in design literacy skill-building workshops. In addition, the Building Brighter Futures Center for the Arts (BBF) sukkah will engage older BBF alums and current BBF youth participants in interviewing each other about their neighborhood experiences through the decades. And the sukkah at the historic Slumbusters Garden will use the participatory sukkah design process as a vehicle to initiate cogenerational gardening, and ultimately to pass the torch for stewarding community gardens from an older generation to a younger cohort. Partnerships with the Chicago History Museum and North Lawndale residents acting as community history consultants will empower intergenerational learning and creativity as participants co-design these sukkahs.
CoGen Cohort
One or two leaders from each CoGen organization will form a CoGen Cohort that will meet periodically to share ideas, learn from one another and expand the impact and reach of cogenerational work.
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. The challenge is in creating opportunities to connect.
Ageist attitudes are barriers to collaboration and mutual learning. Younger people often view older people as “past it” “too slow” and ”know it all’s”; older people often see younger people as “lazy” “entitled” and “self-absorbed.” These attitudes impact the views older people have toward youth and the views people of all ages hold toward seniors. Ageist attitudes are reinforced constantly through advertising, social media, and all forms of entertainment. Internalized, these attitudes become self-fulfilling prophecies and affect both the mental and physical health of people as they age.
Providing opportunities for the generations to work and create together gives each generation a new pair of glasses. Younger people can start to see and appreciate what older people offer: years of experience, the perspective of a broader context and access to resources. Older people can start to see and appreciate the gifts that younger people bring: fresh ideas, lived experience in today’s context, and tech savvy.
CoGen grants will use engagement with the arts to offer intentional opportunities for intergenerational interaction. In doing so, CoGen will help to combat ageism.
CoGen Advisors
To help guide Innovation 80 in establishing CoGen, we are very fortunate to be able to draw on the expertise and lived experiences of a cogenerational group of advisors.
Howard Eglit is Emeritus Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law and an expert on age discrimination. His book Age, Old Age, Language, Law addresses the ways in which language both create and perpetuate ageism, negative biases regarding the elderly.
Ayden Gray is a junior honors student and member of the Business Club at Lane Tech College Prep in Chicago. He is an avid travel team hockey player. He also enjoys playing guitar in his free time. He is thrilled to be a part of the development of I80’s new CoGen program.
Vernā Myers is vice president of inclusion strategy at Netflix, where she spearheads inclusion and equity initiatives and manages a team of inclusion experts worldwide. An inclusion strategist, cultural change catalyst, influencer and thought leader, Vernā is known for her ability to help people bridge differences and connect more meaningfully.
Janet Oh is Director of Innovation at CoGenerate.Org. She started her career connecting older adults as mentors and tutors to youth as director of Experience Corps Bay Area. Through this program, she witnessed the magic that happens when generations come together.
Zayd Patel is a junior at Lane Technical High School in Chicago. He is a member of the Junior Economic Club of Chicago and the Youth Social Entrepreneurs Alliance. He enjoys playing sports, listening to music, and spending time with family and friends. He is excited to be a part of Innovation 80’s CoGen team.
Rowena Richie is an artist, writer and dancer, a Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute, and an Encore.org Innovation Fellow. Her cogenerational work seeks to reduce the stigma associated with aging and dementia, and to illuminate what older people and people living with dementia can teach us.
Phyllis N. Segal is a senior fellow at Cogenerate.org, where she is advancing intergenerational national service as a powerful new way to meet community needs and bridge the generational divide. She co-founded the Eli J. and Phyllis N. Segal Citizen Leadership Program, served in Senate-confirmed positions under Presidents Obama and Clinton, was President of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, and chaired the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Phoebe Snell will enter the honors program at Loyola University in Chicago in September, 2023. She plays guitar, sings in the youth choir at her church in Atlanta and has acted in multiple plays. Phoebe is well-versed in Innovation 80, having served as the organization's first Fellow. She is excited to have a role in shaping I80's new CoGen program.