ABSTRACT
Little City was established in 1959 by a group of parents who envisioned a place near Chicago where family members with developmental disabilities could live meaningful, productive, and dignified lives. The culture at Little City created new possibilities for self-directed learning and fostered more democratic social interactions between participants and staff. Similar to the culture of many makerspaces, at Little City we focused on creating access to a broad array of learning arrangements, including various technologies, stations with tools and both discrete and common spaces for making. Reflecting on the pedagogy embedded within the project at Little City illuminates how the processes of contradiction and answering back were made more possible. Considering the culture of Little City through the lens of makerspace, and as a site for the production of socially engaged art rather than as school or atelier affords a different and perhaps more complex reading of the social dynamic between participants, curriculum, and the site of production.
