RESILIENT HUES:
National Public Housing Museum: Chicago, IL [2025]
Laminated Glass Panels
Resilient Hues is a public art installation created by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous for the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago. Suspended as a glass canopy over the museum’s entrance, the piece is composed of salvaged paint chips and wallpaper fragments collected from the walls of the Jane Addams Homes, one of Chicago’s earliest public housing developments .
These materials—layered and arranged into a mosaic—bear witness to the creative agency of residents who, despite being limited to a narrow palette of approved colors like the ubiquitous “housing authority green,” found ways to personalize and beautify their homes. The installation’s fading, dithered composition echoes the layered histories and lived experiences embedded in these domestic surfaces.
By elevating these humble remnants into a luminous architectural feature, Resilient Hues honors the perserverence, pride, and self-expression of public housing residents. It invites visitors to see beyond stereotypes and recognize the dignity and creativity that have always existed within these communities.
PHOTOS
Photographs by Okunola Jeyifous
ARTIST CELEBRATION
Photographs by Ryan Barayuga
