Slow & Low is the largest gathering of Lowrider culture in Chicago!
“The cars themselves tell a visual story of how lowriders—the term refers to both the cars and their owners—have used customization as a means of creativity and pride.”
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WEBSITE: www.chicagolowriderfestival.com
INSTAGRAM: @slowandlowfest
FACEBOOK: @chicagolowriderfestival
TWITTER: @slowlowfest
EMAIL: chicagolowriderfestival@gmail.com
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Established in 2011, Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival celebrates Lowrider's heritage - the customized car as a way of expressing beauty and self-expression by owners, master craftspeople, innovative mechanics, and modifications including wire wheel rims with whitewall tires, custom pinstriping and upholstery, airbrush muralism, and other contributing visual aesthetics or material objects.
This curated community-cultural public sphere exhibition explores and presents Lowrider culture as an original form of American folk and contemporary art.
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Founders Peter Kepha + Lauren M. Pacheco are proud Mexican-American siblings born and raised in the Brighton Park neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side. For almost two decades, they have collaborated on a series of creative projects, ranging from public art and exhibit curation to cultural policy advocacy and civic engagement initiatives.
Peter Kepha operates a small business, Shady Rest Vintage & Vinyl, in the Pilsen community alongside his partner, Nuntida Sirisombatwattana. Kepha has over a decade of experience curating exhibitions and organizing public engagement events. He holds a BFA in Oil Painting.
Lauren M. Pacheco is an art administrator and curator with an art practice in Gary, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois. She holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Northwestern University. Pacheco is a Marilyn Thoma Co-Creative Director with the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Edward ‘Magic’ Calderon has been an instrumental Slow & Low collaborator and co-organizer since 2012. Calderon was born in El Salvador and immigrated to San Jose, California as a child. For over two decades, he has lived in Chicago. Calderon is a professional photographer and a member of the Viejitos Car Club.
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Chapter 1: 2011 S&L Festival
50 Exhibitors; 500 Attendees @Cermak Road & Halsted Street
Chapter 2: 2012 S&L Festival
150 Exhibitors; 1,500 Attendees @Cermak Road & Jefferson Street
2012 Exhibition
Curated by Peter Kepha @Cermak Road & Jefferson Street
Chapter 3: 2013 S&L Festival
200 Exhibitors; 2,500 Attendees @Cermak Road & Jefferson Street
City of Chicago Resolution at City Hall
October 16, 2013
Chapter 4: 2014 S&L Festival
250 Exhibitors; 3,800 Attendees @Cermak Road & Jefferson Street
Chapter 5: 2015 S&L Festival
315 Exhibitors; 4,500 Attendees @Cermak Road & Jefferson Street
Chapter 6: 2016 S&L Picnic
50 Exhibitors; 500 Attendees @Bronzeville, Chicago Park District
Chapter 7: 2017 S&L Festival
300+ Exhibitors; 6K+Attendees @Cermak Road & Loomis Street
Chapter 8: 2018 S&L Festival
350+ Exhibitors; 10K Attendees @Cermak Road & Loomis Street
Limited-Edition Monograph Published, Summer 2021
200 Copies Printed & Sold
Chapter 9: 2022 S&L Festival
October 15, 2022, @Navy Pier during Hispanic Heritage Month
Official After Party @Marz Brewery
Exhibition Identity Award: STA 100 2022
Chapter 10: 2023 S&L Festival
October 21, 2023 @Navy Pier
300+ Exhibitors | 10,000+ attendees
Exhibition Identitfy Awards: AIGA 365 2023 & STA 100 2023
Limited-Edition Photo Book Published, Winter 2024
1000 Copies, 144 Pages, Hardcover
Chapter 11: 2024 S&L Festival
October 12, 2024 @Navy Pier
300+ Exhibitors | 10,000+ attendees
Exhibition Identity Award: STA 100 2025 Best in Show
Chapter 12: 2025 S&L Festival
October 11, 2024 @Navy Pier
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Slow & Low worked closely with SPAN studio to develop the Chicago Lowrider Festival Navy Pier exhibition identity system.
ABOUT THE STA AWARD: Each year, the STA honors the 100 best examples of typographic excellence produced around the globe.
ABOUT SPAN: A Chicago-based studio crossing the boundaries of communication design in all mediums. Website
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In 2013, Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival was formally recognized with a City of Chicago Resolution, honoring its cultural significance and contributions to the city’s creative landscape. This resolution acknowledged the festival’s role in elevating lowrider culture as an art form, bringing together car clubs, artists, families, and community members in a vibrant celebration of design, heritage, and storytelling. The recognition was an important milestone—not only affirming the value of lowrider culture within Chicago’s civic and cultural identity, but also underscoring the festival’s impact in creating inclusive public spaces where Latino traditions and voices are celebrated as vital to the city’s cultural fabric.
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OUR NEW HARDCOVER BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE!
Purchase in person at the Pilsen Arts and Community House at 1637 W. 18th Street, Chicago, IL 60608. Gallery Hours are Wed-Sun from 12 pm - 6 pm
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The 2024 Hardcover Retrospective Book was generously funded by the Builders Initiative. And, the 2020 Published Monograph was funded through the Propeller Fund, jointly administered by Gallery 400 and Threewalls, and funded through the generosity of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
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Documentation is important to Slow&Low, and collaborating with like-minded creative practitioners helps make this project come to life - after it all happens in the streets or indoors.
Past + Current Slow&Low Videographers: Sam Vega, Nick Brazinsky, Drone Media Chicago
Past + Current Slow&Low Photographers: Sebastian Hildalgo, Max Herman, Katrina Nelken, Carmen Ordonez
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The roots of lowriding trace back to the 1940s when car culture began taking hold across America. This was especially true in southern California, where families began purchasing cars to adapt to the expanding cities of the new, post-war urban landscape. Like their white counterparts, Mexican American veterans also purchased cars with the money they earned from their service in World War II.
As the “hot rod” trend swept the country, which comprised mainly of vintage models like Ford Model-Ts being modernized with enlarged engines for speed, Mexican American vets, deftly employing the mechanical training they had received in the army, began to tweak their cars in their garages as a means of distinguishing themselves both on and off the road. Tinkering with the engines, painting the exteriors, and even adding weights in the back to lower the bodies, Mexican Americans were purposefully altering their cars—Chevys, which were in surplus at the time and designed with an X on the bottom that made them easy to modify were especially popular—so that, unlike the “hot and fast” hot rods, their cars would be “low and slow.”
As Mexican Americans began collectively reimagining their identity from an empowered perspective during the Chicano Movement in the 1970s, lowriders took on a more formalized political function. Car clubs, which were forming, began offering community services, like fundraising for the United Farm Workers labor union and hosting health initiatives.
The Chicano Movement also involved the rediscovery of pro-pueblo imagery by artists such as Diego Rivera—imagery including flowers, warriors, and geometric designs that borrowed heavily from stories and myths belonging to Mexico’s Indigenous groups and eventually made its way onto the cars.
The strategic use of style as a modality of resistance is one of the key elements of these “mobile canvases,” that customization is a way to have a voice. Other homages to traditional customs are visible in the lowrider owners themselves. The Pachuca/o style, a trend defined by broad-shoulders, high-waist trousers, combed hair, and a silver chain dangling from a waist belt, also emerged among Chicano boys in the 1940s as a symbol of rebellion.
Primary source: Blanck, Nili. "Inside L.A.'s Lowrider Car Clubs." Smithsonian Magazine, Travel. May 5, 2021.
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We proudly announce that the Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival will return on Saturday, October 15, 2022, indoors at the historic Navy Pier.
We are excited to be back!
This year's return follows our pre-pandemic festival in September 2018, taking over four city blocks in the Pilsen community, exhibiting more than 250+ customized cars, dozens of bicycles, and motorcycles while welcoming more than 15,000 guests. Slow & Low also featured a curated presentation of local entertainment, music, food, and art. Today, Slow & Low has grown into a community-wide celebration of Lowrider heritage and identity. Unlike a competitive car show, Slow & Low is a curated exhibition that explores and presents Lowrider culture as an original form of American folk and contemporary art.
This fall, during Hispanic Heritage Month, Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival will TAKE OVER 170,000 square feet of exhibition space in Navy Pier's Festival Hall as the largest gathering celebrating Lowrider culture, community, and art in Chicago.
As you can imagine, it's been challenging to organize post-pandemic. The Slow & Low organizing team spent months discussing how to find appropriate outdoor space in the community that offers a secure location, ensuring a family-friendly experience. When approached by representatives of Navy Pier, we found that this partnership resolved our challenges with timing, appropriate space, and security for exhibitors, vendors, and visitors. We believe this partnership creates an exciting opportunity to present and showcase our Lowrider community and are grateful for this partnership. At the same time, we continue to explore community space and remain committed to finding the appropriate outdoor location.
For more information on the 2022 event, as well as to stay up-to-date on all Slow & Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival news and announcements, please visit the following channels:
WEBSITE: www.chicagolowriderfestival.com
INSTAGRAM: @slowandlowfest
FACEBOOK: @chicagolowriderfestival
TWITTER: @slowlowfest
EMAIL: chicagolowriderfestival@gmail.com
We look forward to seeing you all again,
The Slow & Low Team
Peter Kepha, Founder & Producer
Edward Calderon, Collaborator & Producer
Lauren M. Pacheco, Founder & Producer
*Navy Pier and Slow&Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival are not-for-profit entities.
