A Learning Partnership Program
with “Mapping the Liminal":
Stone & Root:
Cemetery Tour at Graceland Cemetery
Chalk and Compass partners with arts-based community programs to provide free administrative support and executive guidance.
What to ExpectMost cemetery tours focus on notable individuals or remarkable trees. Stone and Root takes a different path.
This walking tour explores Graceland Cemetery as a material archive, examining the stones beneath our feet and the living landscape that surrounds them. Together, we will learn to identify the different types of stone found throughout the cemetery, consider where they came from, and explore how geology, ecology, weathering, and human values become inscribed in the cemetery landscape over time.
From limestone and granite to marble and fieldstone, every monument tells a story not only about the person it commemorates but also about extraction, transportation, craftsmanship, durability, and environmental change. We will consider how roots crack stone, how lichen records atmospheric conditions, why some monuments endure while others disappear, and what cemeteries can teach us about material lifecycles, stewardship, and sustainability.
Rather than a tour of famous graves or an arboretum walk, Stone and Root invites participants to develop new ways of seeing. By learning to read the relationships between stone, soil, water, plants, and memory, visitors will gain tools for interpreting Graceland and other cemeteries as complex cultural landscapes shaped by both human intention and natural processes.
Whether you are an artist, gardener, historian, environmentalist, designer, or simply curious about the landscapes around you, this tour offers a deeper understanding of cemeteries as places where geology, ecology, and remembrance meet.
Interested in bringing a group? Contact us at info@chalkandcompass.com for special rates for groups of 6 or more.
❋ Learn to Read the LandscapeDiscover how stone, soil, water, plants, and weather interact to shape cemetery environments. Participants will gain practical tools for interpreting not only Graceland but cemeteries everywhere as living landscapes.
This is not a tour of notable residents or cemetery lore. Instead, we focus on the materials, processes, and relationships that reveal how cemeteries function as archives of environmental and cultural history.
❋ Expert FacilitationLed by Dr. Nicole Hall, cemetery researcher, social geographer, and former Graceland Cemetery Visiting Artist. Drawing on years of field research in cemeteries across the United States and Europe, Hall offers a unique perspective that blends art, ecology, landscape studies, and cultural interpretation.
❋ Beyond Famous Graves❋ A New Perspective on SustainabilityExplore how cemeteries embody lessons in durability, adaptation, stewardship, and ecological change. Through the stories told by stone and root, visitors will encounter cemeteries as unexpected teachers of sustainability and long-term thinking.
ABOUT GRACELAND CEMETERY
Founded in 1860, Graceland Cemetery is one of Chicago's most significant cultural landscapes. Designed as a rural garden cemetery, Graceland was created as a place where nature, memory, art, and reflection could coexist. Over more than 160 years, it has evolved into a remarkable 120-acre landscape of winding paths, ponds, monuments, and carefully cultivated gardens.
While many visitors know Graceland for its architectural monuments and notable Chicagoans, the cemetery is also an extraordinary record of the city's environmental and material history. Its monuments contain stones sourced from across North America and beyond, reflecting changing technologies, aesthetic preferences, and trade networks. Its mature trees, native plantings, and wildlife habitats demonstrate how designed landscapes can become thriving urban ecosystems.
Today, Graceland remains an active cemetery and a cherished green space within Chicago. It offers visitors an opportunity to engage with the city's history while also experiencing a landscape shaped by ongoing processes of growth, weathering, remembrance, and renewal.
As one of the finest examples of the rural cemetery movement in the United States, Graceland invites us to see cemeteries not simply as places of burial, but as living archives that connect people, landscape, and time.
Tour Dates and Schedule:July 11 Tour - Sold Out
August 8 Tour - Available
September 12 Tour - Available
Graceland Cemetery & Arboretum
4001 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60613
Check-In11:00 – 11:30am
Look for the “Cemetery Research” Sign inside Main Gate
Limited parking available in visitor lot - if driving, please allow extra time in case you need to find street parking.
Tour Begins11:30am
Tour begins promptly. Late arrivals cannot be accommodated.
Tour Concludes1:00pm
Dr. Hall will be available for individual questions until 2:00pm
ConsiderationsA restroom and water fountain are available at the main entrance, near check-in. These services are offered at the discretion of Graceland Cemetery. Please allocate additional time to use the facilities prior to the start of the tour as there will be no easy access to these facilities once the tour begins.
Limited parking available in visitor lot - if driving, please allow extra time in case you need to find street parking.
Tour operates rain, snow, or shine - only canceling if the cemetery is closed. Please dress appropriately for the weather. The cemetery can be breezy on cool days and very hot on warm days. Bring a jacket, poncho, umbrella, sunscreen, water, etc. as necessary.
Photographs and note taking are welcome. Share with is on instagram @mappingtheliminal
AccommodationsTour attendees should expect to be walking and standing for the entirety of the tour. While paths through Graceland are paved and wheelchair accessible, many sites the tour visits will require navigating grass, hills, and narrow pathways between gravestones. Please send questions regarding accommodations to info@chalkandcompass.org