More than 150 Columbia students participated in the annual Arts in the Dark parade this year, giving them an opportunity to showcase their artwork and highlighting what makes Columbia stand out.
The annual Arts in the Dark parade is hosted by the nonprofit organization LUMA8, and focuses on highlighting Chicago’s diverse, creative communities. Columbia, with its majority BIPOC and queer student body, is one of them.
This year, organizers expected around 100,000 people to line the parade route on Columbus Drive, starting at Balbo Street and Columbia’s campus and ending at Monroe Street.
Columbia has participated in the Halloween parade since 2014, but in the last two years, it’s made a bigger push under President and CEO Shantay Bolton. In 2025, Columbia incorporated a group dance inspired by the film, “Sinners,” along with different masks and art pieces in hopes of showcasing diverse cultural backgrounds through art. That same goal continued this year.
Students enrolled in Columbia’s Big Chicago courses created art pieces throughout the first half of the semester to showcase in the parade. Robin Whatley, associate dean of Academic Operations and Programming, told the Chronicle in an email that this year there were at least six sections of Big Chicago that participated.
They included “Haunted House,” “Haunted Stockyards,” “Carnival Art: Chicago Stories,” “Celebration as Urban Culture” and “Haunted Cinema.”
For first-year students, the Big Chicago courses give them an immediate opportunity to explore the city, and that’s important with more new students on campus. Columbia welcomed about 1,100 new students this fall, up from 632 first-time, first-year students last fall. The Arts in the Dark parade was an incredible first-semester experience where students could connect with one another and bond over art.
The parade marks a moment for Columbia to show itself to the city every year — much like Manifest — and gives students a stage to do it.
As student Alexander Huarcas, a first-year music major, told the Chronicle, “Being part of an event that I wouldn’t have known about was kind of like playing in a symphony when you don’t know what the music is, and you end up doing pretty good at it too. It came to me as a surprise, but it was really pleasant.”
Chicago’s creative future depends on artists having opportunities to share their work with the public. Arts in the Dark gives Columbia students that opportunity. The college should continue to find ways for students to have more of those opportunities.
Copy edited by Venus Tapang
