The InterArts Welcome Potluck and Exhibition is scheduled for next Friday, September 14, from 5:30–7:30 p.m. in the Raw Space. This annual tradition again welcomes new students, and reconnects continuing MA and MFA’s as they dive into a new year of groundbreaking artmaking in the program. The Raw Space in 1104 South Wabash Avenue will do double duty that evening as an exhibition space. Representatives from the two student groups, ImageUnit and P.I.T., have placed a call for entries for work to be dropped off in the 916 Equipment Center. Between the submission deadline of 7:00 p.m. on September 12 and the Potluck event two days later, the two student groups will mount a one-night “pop-up” gallery exhibition in the Raw Space.

The festivities continue after the Potluck, spilling over into the nearby Chicago Arts District in East Pilsen. There, the Second Fridays Gallery Night will be in full swing. On the second Friday of each month, artists’ studios and 30 galleries in this vibrant neighborhood neighborhood open their doors for art, conversation, and wine and cheese receptions. Solid Ground Studio founder Megan Pitcher (second year Media MFA) is hosting the exhibition OOPS! in her space, a show designed and implemented by one of last spring’s Art as Practice classes. The exhibition, which features work by Greg Browe, Jillian Bruschera, Dennis Burke, Alisa Caron, Lilli Carre, Scott Dickens, Ahmed Hamad, Chelsey Shilling, and Valentina Vella, presents concepts and ruminations on twenty-first century situations, scandals, lies, quick alibis, forest fires, failures, frustrations, rain checks, re-dos, a not-really-sorry remark, and regret. Second Fridays visitors can expect to encounter slapstick silly, explosions, spills, haphazard experiments, a happy accident, permanent markers, moments of “could-have-should-have-would-have,” the last word, a terrifying wrong turn, sudden realizations, an unforeseen adventure, and thrills, chills, and spills, all between 6:00–10:00 p.m.