HISTORY
In 1991, a group of Chicago artists, activists and weirdos came together to launch Lumpen , a free periodical dedicated to arts, politics, and culture. This publication became the seedbed for Public Media Institute (PMI), which co-founder Ed Marszewski and many other artists formally established ten years later as an artist-run nonprofit. Building upon the spirit of Lumpen, PMI worked to create a sustainable platform for independent media and socially engaged art.
Co-Prosperity’s building was opened as a neighborhood department store in the late 19th century century.
Since 2001, PMI produced dozens of publications and periodicals, including Proximity Magazine, Select Magazine, Materiel Magazine, The Bridgeport International, and Mash Tun Journal while continuously publishing its flagship Lumpen.
PMI has organized a wide range of festivals, primarily Version Fest (2001-2017), which was an annual arts, music, and technology convergence that took place each Fall. Other festivals included Select Media Festival, The Freedom Festival, and the MdW Art Fair, which gathered over 70 artist-run spaces for three alternative art fairs between 2011 and 2012 and re-emerged as a coalition of midwestern artist run projects in 2021.
In 2006, PMI's central hub Co-Prosperity launched as an experimental cultural center opened in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. Co-Prosperity houses a gallery, performance space, publishing office, and more, forming a nexus for exhibitions, events, and community gatherings showcasing artists from Chicago and beyond.
In 2015, PMI expanded its reach by launching Lumpen Radio (WLPN 105.5 FM), a low-power radio station broadcasting a diverse mix of community-generated content 24/7. Committed to amplifying a wide range of voices, Lumpen Radio offers multilingual programming and provides a platform for emerging cultural producers.
In 2019, PMI established the Co-Prosperity Programming Council, a large group of Chicago-based artists who oversee Co-Prosperity's visual arts programming; they evaluate and produce proposals for experimental, heterogenous and noncommercial programming in the gallery.
In 2020, in response to the global pandemic, we launched several initiatives: Lumpen TV, a livestreaming platform for artists; Buddy, a retail shop featuring Chicago makers at the Chicago Cultural Center; The Quarantine Times, an online publication commissioning creative responses to the pandemic; and The Community Kitchen, a food service program addressing food insecurity.
These highlights begin to sketch the history of thousands of events, exhibitions, concerts, symposia, free schools, magazines and radio broadcasts that PMI and communities have produced together.
More information can be found in our growing archives.
Version Fest ran for 16 years. Version 12 was focused onremixing twelve temporary spaces, businesses, enterprises and projectsin Bridgeport to celebrate and reimagine the neighborhood we love and call home.