Lawndale Pop-Up Spot

The Lawndale Pop-Up Spot’s founders call the project the first community-led museum in a shipping container. UIC graduate students Chelsea Ridley and Jonathan Kelley began planning a neighborhood museum in 2016, and after the original building was demolished, the container opened in August 2019 in the Spaulding Memorial Garden. In 2021 the museum moved to Love Blooms Here Plaza at 3601 W. Douglas Blvd. Residents and West Side artists curate six to eight shows a year; the fall 2026 exhibition, Where the Blood Flows by Terreon Collins, runs September 11 through October 31. The Pop-Up Spot also runs Sundays on the Boulevard and co-sponsors the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival.

What to know

• The museum is a shipping container at Love Blooms Here Plaza, Douglas Boulevard and Central Park Avenue, since 2021.
• Founded by UIC graduate students Chelsea Ridley and Jonathan Kelley; the container first opened in August 2019.
• Six to eight exhibitions a year feature West Side artists, curators and community groups.
• Where the Blood Flows, an art exhibition on sickle cell anemia by Terreon Collins, runs September 11 to October 31, 2026.
• The 82 Kimball-Homan bus stops at the door; the Central Park Pink Line station is about half a mile south.