The Land School
 

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Rebuild Foundation, the nonprofit artistic project led by artist Theaster Gates, is thrilled to announce the opening of The Land School, the organization’s latest space-based project at what was formerly known as the St. Laurence Elementary School, on September 14, 2025. The Land School, a nod to Gates’ formal training in urban planning, proposes a radical model of land stewardship rooted in artistic excellence, creative experimentation and archival practice. At The Land School, Rebuild will elaborate on its mission by offering space, time, access, critique and process-driven programming led by an intergenerational cohort of artists, thinkers and organizations invested in culture as a service. 

In 2002, the St. Laurence Catholic Elementary School at the corner of 72nd Street and Dorchester Avenue was shuttered, placing the 40,000-square-foot institution at risk for demolition. After over a decade of disuse, Gates and Rebuild acquired the building for nearly half a million dollars, rescuing it from complete erasure. This acquisition initiated a seven-year, $12 million reconstitution project that preserved the building’s historic masonry structure, signature plasterwork and decorative brick. 

 

Artist Theaster Gates shares, “The Land School marks a radical milestone in our work, one where—as a small, experimental arts organization invested in space redemption—we now own our tools and our facility. As we consecrate the building and celebrate our archives in this first phase of opening, we are excited for the space to continue to reveal itself to us over the years. It is precisely this iterative, durational approach to our work that allows us to cultivate the full promise of Black space and creative intelligence. Over the past twenty years, it has become evident that the challenges, lessons, and opportunities we’ve encountered in this work form critical pedagogies and heuristics for how we can imagine and realize new spatial futures for our communities.” 

A cornerstone project of The Land School will be the dissemination of lessons and insights gleaned from Rebuild’s multi-decade artistic approach to place-based practice. Gates and Rebuild will impart their strategies for confronting histories of dispossession through creative investments in land and archives as methods of community self-determination. 

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Marking fifteen years since the official establishment of Rebuild, The Land School will extend the organization’s existing impact on Chicago’s South Side, uniting and anchoring an ecosystem of formerly disused spaces that have been transfigured into sites of creative production, artistic experimentation, radical hospitality, archival stewardship and land cultivation. Through this work, Rebuild aims to protect the memory and imprint of culturally significant space on the built environment and in the development of personal foundations that are not only intellectual but profoundly aesthetic, creative and purposeful. 

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The Land School’s opening will unfold in phases, with the first welcome taking place this Fall, where Rebuild will announce The Land School’s inaugural creative partners-in-residence: Chicago-based Black chamber music collective D-Composed; new music recording label International Anthem and DJ and music historian Duane Powell. 

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Rebuild will celebrate the inauguration of The Land School on Sunday, September 14, with a daylong celebration marking the completion of renovation and commemorating the first public invitation to The Land School: 

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Kenwood Gardens, 6929 S. Kenwood Ave, Chicago 

11AM–12PM 

Live Honey Extraction with The Roof Crop 

 

12:30PM–1:30PM 

Yoga with April Falcon 

 

1:30 PM–2PM 

Garden Open Hours 

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The Land School, 1353 E. 72nd St, Chicago 

1PM 

The Land School Official Remarks, Ribbon-Cutting and Press Conference 

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2PM–9PM 

Site-specific experimental performances and discussions with Theaster Gates; Angel Bat Dawid and D-Composed; Dr. Carol Adams and Kahil El’Zabar; International Anthem recording artists Ben LaMar Gay, Makaya McCraven and Tomin with Anaiet Soul; Duane Powell; Najha-Zigbi Johnson and other friends and artists. 

 

The Land School is made possible by the support of Alderperson Michelle Harris; American Airlines; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Chicago Community Trust; City of Chicago Neighborhood Opportunity Fund (NOF); Clayco Foundation; Coleman Foundation; CommonSpirit Health; Ford Foundation; Good Chaos; Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA); Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity (DCEO); Knoll; The Kresge Foundation; Litowitz Family Foundation; Love on Tour; LUMA Foundation; Mellon Foundation; MacArthur Foundation; MillerKnoll Foundation; Paul and De Gray; Prada Group; Pritzker Traubert Foundation; Reimagining the Civic Commons, a national initiative funded by The JPB Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Kresge Foundation; Surdna Foundation; Terra Foundation for American Art and Wallace Foundation.