An Update from Links Hall
April 17, 2025
Dear Links Hall Community, Far and Wide, Past and Present, Rooted and Growing,
There is no easy way to say this.
With heavy hearts, we share with you that our board of directors has voted to sunset the organization at the end of this current fiscal year, June 30, 2025.
This decision was made after several years of struggling to balance the cash needs to operate Links Hall and the funding reality after years of diminished foundation and government support. At the end of last year, with the unexpected loss of another general operating grant, we launched a 5-month public effort to fundraise to stabilize the organization and address a cash flow emergency. Our community showed up and supported us, helping us raise half of our goal. This was tremendous but also reinforced the funding ceiling we continuously hit. Across the early years of the COVID pandemic, two leadership and staff changes, we worked to stabilize. Amidst a rapidly shrinking arts funding climate and today’s economic reality, the financial challenges that lay ahead are simply too great to survive. Our options are few, our capacity is diminished, and with another looming cash flow gap on the horizon, this time months-wide, we feel the most responsible decision to make is to sunset.
We are making this decision now so that we can close with integrity and dignity, connected in community, and with the ability to properly honor and ensure the archive of the almost-50 year legacy of this beloved organization. We have all experienced the trauma of sudden endings. As much as we are able, we want this to be softer, with enough time and space to hold everything our community needs us to hold.
We are determined to finish out our current season and commitments to artists through June 30th.
We are committed to doing this together, in relationship and community.
What we know
Programming through June 30, 2025 at Links Hall will continue. Our team will then take the month of July to move out.
To finish out the season, ensure a thorough archiving process, and support staff transitions, we will need to raise an additional $65,000. We will soon share an updated funding goal for our Lifeline for Links campaign to capture this adjusted amount.
What we do not know
What, exactly, is going to happen to the space after we are out. Constellation and Mike Reed are interested in stewarding some of the long term Links Legacy programs forward and supporting the transition for renters. This is all still taking shape and we will share plans once they’re in place.
We are deeply grateful for the support we’ve received from individuals, collectives, partner organizations, and funders since we launched our Lifeline for Links campaign in October 2024. Thank you to everyone who donated money, connected us to a new person, held a fundraiser, shared our link, and emailed their networks. Thank you for all of it.
This collective support and love for Links Hall helped keep us financially and spiritually afloat this season. While we had all hoped that we could meet our full goal, we are so grateful for how much everyone gave across this campaign, and across the years at Links Hall.
Please know this decision comes after years of strategic discussions and in-depth debate, after exploring every single possibility. The exhaustion of the staff and board after such a long, sustained effort to steady the organization is also an important factor in these current conditions.
All this to say, we know this news is devastating and we are also devastated.
We want to ritualize this ending in June. We want to create space for people to come together to grieve, connect, rage, dance, celebrate, and say goodbye to the organization that is Links Hall as we know it. We want this ritual to be beautiful and significant. A celebration of life.
We hope to organize and formally announce this event soon.
Our offering: Let’s do this together.
Endings are transformations.
May Links Hall closing create fertile soil for Chicago performance to seed and grow in new ways. May we free up resources for other performance spaces and inspire new maps of connection. May this moment incite funders to double down on their support of small, experimental arts organizations and the independent artists and collectives that give breath to this city.
Founded in 1978 by Bob Eisen, Carol Bobrow, and Charlie Vernon, Links Hall remarkably defied the odds to serve thousands upon thousands of artists over the course of nearly 50 years. From humble beginnings, to a singular legacy of fostering experimental work in Chicago, Links survived and fulfilled its mission for longer than anyone might have expected. We offer gratitude to the lineage of stewards who ensured this remarkable run: Michael Zerang, Asimina Chremos, CJ Mitchell, Sandy Gerding, Roell Schmidt, Stephanie Pacheco, and many more amongst the generations of collective support.
May the impact of this 50-year organization continue to reverberate out into our collective performance communities for the greatest benefit of all.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Please come to the space, we have a full slate of programming these next two months.
We are here.
Sincerely,
SK Kerastas, Executive Director, the Staff, and the Board of Directors at Links Hall