Gallery 901
Exhibitions at Gallery 901 feature artists and community organizations whose work reflects Open Studio Project’s vision that art is a path to wellbeing. This vision includes artists of all kinds, from professionals whose work has been shown in commercial galleries and museums, to self-taught artists who have never shown their work before. As a community-based gallery, our exhibitions are designed to foster dialogue, reflection, and connection, and we invite all audiences to engage with the diverse perspectives on display.
CURRENT SHOW
FREE YOUR MIND:
The Art of Margarita Inn
November 1 - December 1, 2025
Opening Reception Saturday November 1 @ 1-3pm
In partnership with Connections for the Homeless, Open Studio Project provides a weekly Art & Wellness group to residents of the Margarita Inn shelter. This experiential, process-based art group combines open-ended art-making with reflective writing, for individuals of any background and ability. Taking place in the Margarita Inn’s parlor, the weekly art groups provide a safe, supportive space for participants to tap into their creativity and develop tools for processing trauma, connecting with others who have a shared lived experience, and moving forward on their journey to permanent housing. Weekly groups explore drawing, painting, collage-making, hand loom weaving, and sculpture, with the guidance of Open Studio Project facilitators.
UPCOMING SHOW
BAKKE CAKKE
Baking Cake and Other Things in Life.
Jerri Zbiral
December 6 - January 30, 2026
Opening Reception Saturday December 6 @ 3-6pm
JERRI ZBIRAL (b. 1948) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. Jerri became the Director of the Inner-City Photo Workshop and later founded and directed community photography programs for the Public Art Workshop and the Community Arts Center of the Uptown Hull House in Chicago. There, she worked as arts administrator, teacher, and director of a special photography program for the hearing impaired. With Alan Teller, she is a partner in The Collected Image, exhibiting vintage and contemporary photography and appraising photographic, film and book collections.
Jerri has received numerous grants for her own photography and to fund community programs. Over the last 40 years she has had numerous exhibitions of her own work as well as ones pertaining to her programs. She has both written and been the subject of many articles in newspapers, books and magazines.
She has directed and produced the award winning and internationally screened documentary films Never Turning Back, The World of Peggy Lipschutz and with Alan Teller, In the Shadow of Memory: Legacies of Lidice. She is co-Director of the Fulbright-Nehru funded project Following the Box. This 3,000 sq. ft. exhibition has toured throughout India and came to the U.S. in 2017. She and Alan also produced a documentary film version of Following the Box that premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival and that has been an Official Selection at several international film festivals.
Jerri also serves as a French language interpreter at the Marjorie Kovler Center for Victims of Torture. She lives and works in Evanston, IL.
