Why, hello there!

My name is Mark Jaeschke (he/they), I am a Chicago-based collage artist, musician, cultural worker, and historic preservationist in-training. While I’ve lived in the Chicagoland area for most of my life, much of my personal experience is shaped by my identity as a transracial adoptee.

My collage work lives in a world of mystique, whimsy, and possibility. I am drawn towards the wild and the seemingly untamable. I am drawn towards creating home and rediscovering heritage. I am also drawn towards humor and the uncanny as adaptations for and reactions to an increasingly volatile world. I love organic objects, shapes, and materials, and use them to create familiar, yet foreign landscapes and spaces.

In the realm of music, I’ve been writing and recording for over a decade. I’ve had the great opportunity to tour across the United States several times, as well as Europe and Japan. A song can quite literally really take you places.

In addition these creative endeavors, I have worked in the museum world professionally for the last seven years at the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM). As a public programmer, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with artists, activists, and other cultural workers to create vivid programs, events, and exhibitions. I also co-founded the National Public Housing Museum Workers United with the IAMAW.

I am currently a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Historic Preservation Certification Program. Our landscapes and spaces make up so much of our identity and it is important to maintain them, while continuing to develop our world. I am specifically interested in adaptive reuse projects, much like the NPHM.

Outside of these practices, you can find me hiking with my wife, watching Severance or Twin Peaks with our cats, or drinking a non-alcoholic Budweiser.

Thanks again for stopping by my little bit of the world wide web. Since you clicked ‘about,’ you may want to know a bit more about me and my practice.

Happy to oblige.

Photo by Alec Ozawa