Take the Red Line north (quite possibly farther north than you have ever ridden) and get off at the Morse stop in Rogers Park. Just west of the tracks sits a north-south street that runs parallel to the train. Walk just south, and you’ll find yourself in front of one of the hottest cultural nexus points in the city. Temporary Services co-founders Salem Collo-Julin, Marc Fischer and Brett Bloom ran a gallery downtown at the prime intersection of State and Adams before the downtown revitalization forced the inevitable reckoning with economic realities.

After a stint as rogue curators, artists and activists in locales like Puerto Rico, Thailand, Portland, Switzerland and the University of Chicago's Smart Museum the members of Temporary Services joined forces with Ava Bromberg (In the Field), Marianne Fairbanks and Jane Palmer (JAM), Sam Gould (Red 76 Arts Group), Dan S. Wang and Mike Wolf (Network of Casual Art) to found Mess Hall.

Mess Hall is, in its own words "an experimental cultural center…an open space for events, lectures, workshops, art, ideas and exchange…a place for visual culture, creative urbanism, sustainable ecology, food democracy and more." Past lectures have included Polish Anarchist Squater Krzysztof Kr, Center for Land Use Interpretation founder Matthew Coolidge and a Snackluck with Jennifer Breckner in collaboration with Kevin Coval.

Centerstage Reviewer: Ralph Barton