Rew Otto Gordon is a cultural producer and serial founder whose work explores how people imagine new forms of collective life. Working across the midwest in various institutions and creating new ones, Rew’s work often situates the creative economy as a place for civic engagement. Drawing from traditions of community organizing and interdisciplinary collaboration, their projects operate between performance and infrastructure: part exhibition, part social experiment, part public platform for play.
Interested in how institutions can become sites of belonging, Rew develops projects that foreground curiosity and unexpected forms of exchange. Their work frequently engages questions of participation, community, and the conditions that allow strangers to become co-conspirators.
Originally from Chicago, Rew has called various parts of the midwest home. They are the founder of Mitchell Street Arts & The Token Institute and have led initiatives across the arts, civic engagement, and cultural production. Their projects have received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Herzfeld Foundation, the State of Wisconsin, the State of Illinois, the City of Chicago and the City of Evanston, to name just a few. Rew holds a Masters degree from Northwestern University in Leadership for Creative Enterprises and a Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College in Art & Education.
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Hi! My name’s Rew. I grew up in Chicago but have spent a great deal of my life living in different parts of the American Midwest. I’ve worked hard to shape my professional life around creating spaces for people to engage deeply with strange ideas and strange strangers. I value exploring the differences between us and believe my own contribution to the world to be helping people spend quality time with others that are not like them. I also think that play is an essential ingredient in a healthy society and art is an essential medium for adult play.
I’m extroverted and like working with others to create new things. My general approach is to talk about my ideas with others as they come up, and whatever inspires others to collaborate is what ends up being actualized.
I feel blessed to sustain myself with skills I've acquired through passion and hard work, but I am particularly thrilled when those coincide with the spark of the whole human experience. If you are reading this, it's likely you now know more about me than I know about you, so if we ever meet in person, I hope we level the playing field.
