Our Story
What
Culture Saving's mission is to proactively preserve the arts community by implementing exhibitions and cultural experiences that increase partnerships, positive visibility, and meaningful connections between arts organizations and their audiences.
We started Culture Saving to document and showcase artists, activists, and organizations that actively build and cultivate socially-minded arts and culture.
We individually hold expertise in cultural event documentation, exhibition design & curation, and communications. We specifically provide art direction, consulting, and execution with branding, UX design, and content creation.
Why
The vision for Culture Saving is to uplift and support our community while creating a cultural record for future generations
We believe in the possibilities of what could be, and we are willing to take risks, make sacrifices, and manifest a world that our ancestors and leaders from the past envisioned for us. We strive to preserve the past and present so that our stories and narratives are elevated in the future.
Hannah Jasper
Cofounder and Curator
Hannah Jasper is an independent, interdisciplinary curator who works with contemporary art museums and galleries to showcase innovative arts and culture exhibitions.
Hannah knows that the power in good exhibitions comes at the crossroads of unheard stories and high-quality execution. She believes a curator's role is to set the stage for stories, people, and ideas to be shown at their highest potential.
Hannah most recently worked on projects at the University of Chicago including, On The Record (2020), S is for Soul Sister (2020), In Spirit and Structure (2019), Amid Kinship (2019), Still Here (2019), and many more. Before that, she served as a Founder and lead Curator at the Children's Museum of Art and Social Justice, where she ushered in projects including indiGo (2018), Just Add Water (2018), Listening through the Walls (2017), and Springtime On Neptune (2017).
Hannah is a member of the Art Museum Curators' association and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Art Administration from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Daris Jasper
Cofounder and Art Director
Daris Jasper is an art director who has a deep fascination with storytelling, sociocultural anthropology, branding, and market research; and has developed a unique approach to assisting top executives of arts organizations and cultural institutions with defining and shaping the way they communicate to their audiences.
Daris’s commitment to community and the arts has guided him on a path to giving back to youth throughout Chicago while working and supporting leading arts-focused organizations such as the Common Ground Foundation, Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, N’Namdi Contemporary, and the Chicago Park District.
Daris serves as co-director of development for Open Architecture-Chicago, a nonprofit that mobilizes architects, designers, and local leaders to create sustainable, innovative, and socially responsive design.
Daris is an alum from the 2019 cohort of the Crossroads Fund’s Giving Project. A program developed to fundraise through a process of "donor organizing" and practice participatory grantmaking supporting strategic, necessary, and underfunded social justice organizing work around Chicago's city.
Daris is also a proud alum of the Latino Policy Forum’s Multicultural Leadership Academy. He was trained in and encouraged to apply intercultural collaboration and collaborative social action between Latinos and African Americans.
Daris returned to college to attain a master’s from DePaul University to enhance his expertise and skills. He successfully formulated a graduate learning plan that focused on increasing an organization's financial sustainability by employing sponsorship and partners for the arts and arts education. His learning plan probes sponsorship evaluation, public relations, event marketing, audience research & development, sponsorship sales, and social media. He has applied his research and theories to real-world experiences with clients.
Sociable Weaver Nest
Our love for ornithology, biomimicry, and design lead us to discover the sociable weaver's communal nesting habits. This research has worked as the source of our inspiration for evaluating and helping to grow comprehensive community spaces.
Image credit: Dillon Marsh
Image credit: Dillon Marsh
The Sociable Weaver
A small brown bird the size of an average human palm, the sociable weaver creates nests that are without a doubt the most unique and impressive of all the structures built by animals. The sociable weavers’ nests triumph over others because its design is not only a marvel of size and style, but it is the only animal that builds and lives in its created structure communally with other species.
Creating surreal and mind-boggling forms on trees and utility poles in South Africa and Botswana, these nests can reach as high as 2,000 pounds. The social weaver birds will have their own individual chamber and community-based contracts and responsibilities that allow them to thrive in the nest.
We have learned to a great extent from the lessons gathered from these birds and the nests they build. Not only are they our source of inspiration, but they have enabled us to produce a set of principles for the design and programming of creative, vibrant, and ethical community spaces.
Weave as a Theoretical Model
Constant Generative Hum
Reciprocity, Not Dogma
Sustainable and Recycled Materials and Spaces
Inclusivity
Threat Negotiation
Join our nest.
We are always interested in learning about organizations and artists doing the work, making a difference, and taking control over their own narratives. We are continuously seeking to work with those doing their part to make history and shape the future for the better.