Movies and TV shows depict college campuses as lush green quads with diverse students lounging on blankets spread over the grass, cramming for exams, and playing hacky sack. But at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, we don’t have the “Gilmore Girls” or “Degrassi” picture-perfect greenery of a stereotypical college campus.
Our campus exists entirely within the skyscrapers of Chicago. The only green spaces we experience as part of our campus are the 280 Building’s courtyard and pit or the Art Institute of Chicago’s gardens. Otherwise, the only options are going to Millennium or other parks that put nature back into the Loop.
“Hog Butcher for the World, / Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, / Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; / Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of the Big Shoulders,” the opening lines of Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” reflect the city even 110 years later. Chicago is a beautiful city defined by industrialization and pollution. Only in Chicago could the whole city see art and joy in the impression of a rat in the sidewalk.
While we may love this city, as of 2025, Chicago is the seventh most polluted city in the United States. The city is our campus. It’s where we live and breathe and create. It becomes part of who we are as artists — train tracks, pollution, and everything else. As the next generation of artists, thinkers, and scholars, we need to not only be conscious of the environment we occupy, but also be caretakers of it.
As the climate crisis worsens globally, it is our responsibility to continue to stay informed, to make noise, and to support each other, especially communities at risk of climate destruction. This is more than just using a reusable water bottle or becoming a vegan. It’s about working towards structural, institutional change across the U.S. and the world in a time where science, and specifically climate science, is increasingly under siege.
SAIC students come from all over the world. Collectively, we have seen the impact of the climate crisis across a myriad of landscapes. From the F Newsmagazine staff alone, our families have faced the California wildfires, worsening hurricanes in Louisiana, sandstorms in Dubai, unsafe drinking water in Michigan, constant storms in Virginia, tsunamis in Bombay, and freezing temperatures in Texas. We need to listen to each other’s experiences and knowledge, to learn from it. Only through community building can we take care of each other and weather the metaphorical and literal storms on the horizon.
In this issue of F Newsmagazine, we want to draw attention to spaces and environments. We want readers to think about how they will sustain the worlds they walk through as well as the worlds that exist hundreds of miles away. On page 6, there is an article looking at how environmental science is taught at SAIC and examining how this could be supported institutionally.
This issue also focuses on global environmental concerns. Page 4 deep dives into all the facts you need to know about bird flu, including how to stay safe and how the disease is transmitted. Page 8 takes an honest, harsh look at how war, capitalism, and climate destruction are forever interlinked.
This issue discusses environmentalism from an artistic lens as well, using cosplay as a way of teaching sustainable creative practices (page 18).
This issue is also about community building. From the MFA and senior shows that run throughout the end of the semester (page 17), to delving into the vibrant comics culture at SAIC (page 16), we wanted to highlight the creative communities that exist here.
We took it one step further, leaning into a college stereotype that art students often miss out on — Sports. This is no April Fools’ joke. This issue of F Newsmagazine has a special sports section!
Believe it or not, our school has a sports community that includes rock climbers, ping pong players, volleyball players, skateboarders, roller derby skaters, and many more. But to support sports in an urban campus, there needs to be space made for sports, even at an art school.
Sports can be a way of sustaining our bodies, the same way our art can sustain our minds. As we think about taking care of our bodies, we must also think about caring for the world our bodies move through.
