AMFM L!ve | Season 2, Episode 2

Join AMFM and Working From_ at The Hoxton, Chicago for AMFM L!ve, an evening talk show inspired by the popular classic, The Tonight Show, but with our own Chicago twist. Come hang in the West Loop to listen in with a free bev (or two) in hand.
AMFM Founder, Ciera Alyse McKissick, welcomes visual artists, musicians, and fashion creatives to be in conversation about their practice and all things Chicago. Tune in for fun interviews, games, and performances, accompanied by Guest DJ, ShamPain Wishes, in front of a live audience.
Season 2, Episode 2 kicks off on Thursday, November 20th from 7-9:30PM (doors at 7pm + show at 7:30pm). Featured guests include Hope Wang, Shawnee Dez, and Chelsey Carter-Sanders.

About Our Guests:

Hope Wang

Hope Wang is an artist and creative entrepreneur based in Chicago, IL. Her practice explores memory, loss, and longing in the ever-shifting architectural landscape. Through handweaving, photography, poetry, and printmaking, she develops what she calls (American) Midwest Melancholy as a visual language. In her work, she dwells on what is often already disappearing: the last seconds of the sun setting against a factory wall, the shadow of a locked gate cast by streetlights, or the wavering space between an open storefront and a vacant one.

Hope is also the founder and co-director of LMRM “loom room,” is a project space fostering opportunities for art-making, research, and community programming around digital weaving. She is invested in equitable conditions for working artists, resource sharing, and moving at the speed of trust. She is a recipient of an Artists Run Chicago Grant (2024) from the Hyde Park Art Center, and a Chicago Community Fellowship Fund (2023) from the Breakout Foundation for LMRM’s contributions to the city’s art community. Her artwork has been exhibited throughout the US, which includes the Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College Chicago, IL; the Peeler Art Center at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN; The Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee, WI; amongst others.

Shawnee Dez

Chicago-based music artist Shawnee Dez intently engages her audience, encouraging energy exchanges first and foremost. Dez is concerned with ancestral knowledge and performance as an opportunity to channel from and communicate with the past, present, and future. In her 2025 single, Lullabye the Fire, Dez confronts the split nature of being an artist, creating during a time of mass destruction and confusion. Utilizing harmonic layering, a fusion of live instrumentation and digital production, and her dynamic, multi-ranged alto melodic voice, she creates the perfect dreamscape.

Dez is a self-taught sound healer who utilizes the wisdom of ancient instruments such as singing bowls, shakers, the gong, and her voice to promote full-body healing.

When off the stage, Shawnee’s work centers on creativity and community advocacy. She activates spaces such as SUG N JAM Open Mic, allowing participants to express themselves unapologetically. In June 2020, Shawnee organized the first mass Juneteenth Black JoyRide bike ride, a critical mass demonstration through Chicago’s Metropolitan area. This ride was born as a symbol of liberation and mobility, attributes Dez often speaks of in her music.

Chelsey Carter-Sanders

Chelsey Carter-Sanders founder and CEO of Alex Carter brand. After graduating from The Art Institute - Chicago, she launched the Alex Carter brand in 2015. Where she caters to customers who are risk-taking but appreciate edgy classics. Sanders has been featured in Vogue Italia, Elle, Chicago SunTimes, Modern Luxury, Covergirl of SPLASH and the Chicago Tribune. She was also a contestant on Bravo’s Season 18 of Project Runway. In addition to these press opportunities, Chelsey has also partnered with brands such as Lexus RX, Lululemon, Converse and HBO Max; to name a few. Chelsey is set on building a legacy of Classic American designs that stand the test of time and hopes to encourage all aspiring designers to do the same. Today, the Alex Carter brand is known for creating everyday clothes for not so everyday people—bridging the gap between simplicity and edge.

Your Host: Ciera Alyse Mckissick

Ciera Alyse McKissick is an independent, curator, event producer, writer, and the founder of AMFM, a media platform whose mission is to promote and uplift emerging interdisciplinary artists and creatives. McKissick created AMFM, originally a web magazine, as an independent study project in 2009 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied Journalism and Mass Communications. Her work since then has involved supporting the work and practice of Black and brown artists through writing, exhibitions, partnerships, and activations in collaboration with local arts organizations and institutions. Ultimately, she seeks to stimulate community engagement that's driven by inclusivity, accessibility, intention, and care. She is also the founder of a contemporary art space, cam.contemporarie, that seeks to support the work of emerging artists from the global majority through solo exhibitions and projects. She was the Inaugural Curatorial Fellow with The Luminary in 2023, and was a participant in the Independent Curators International’s Chicago Curatorial Seminar in 2022. Formerly she was also the Public Programs Manager at the Hyde Park Art Center. She is currently pursuing a Masters at Goldsmiths University in London, UK.
McKissick’s projects and events have been featured on / with Elephant Mag, Artsy, Cultured, Terremoto MX, Afropunk, ABC 7 Chicago, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, WGN, WTTW, and more. Art Fairs and programmatic partners include The Hoxton Hotel, Saatchi Art, EXPO Chicago, The Other Art Fair, Red Bull and more.

About AMFM

AMFM is a Chicago media based arts platform that supports and features emerging visual and interdisciplinary artists, musicians, designers, and creatives from Chicago, and all over the globe, with an emphasis on Black, Brown, and LGBTQIA artists. We support artists through our web content, curated events, exhibitions, partnerships, and activations. We connect artists to opportunities to showcase art with partner spaces and venues like the Bronzeville Winery, The Promontory, and Practical Audacity, an LGBTQIA centered therapy practice at the Kimball Arts Center. Through programming, AMFM combines the arts in traditional and nontraditional spaces to cultivate community, diversity, inclusivity, intergenerational engagement, and of course, good vibes with a purpose, mission, or cause. Noteworthy past projects include our programming and exhibitions at our former gallery space from 2016-2018, The Jazz Series, a pop up music showcase featuring musicians specializing in contemporary music influenced by jazz, Feast, an art and music festival raising awareness about food deserts on the South and West sides, and partnering with Saatchi Art's The Other Art Fair, EXPO Chicago, and The Hoxton for AMFM L!ve, a talk show in front of a live audience centering Chicago creatives. Learn more about us at www.amfm.life.

About Working From_

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