In celebration of Women’s History Month, join Arts + Public Life and filmmaker, author and historian Essence McDowell for a special screening of Invisible Giants, an archival and story-driven documentary celebrating the enduring legacies of Black women who shaped Chicago’s cultural, social, and political landscape—and those who continue to do so today.
The program doesn’t end when the credits roll. We invite you to participate in a range of hands-on, post-screening activations inspired by the companion curriculum, Lifting as We Teach. Expect creative, experiential making sessions designed to help participants engage history with their hands, hearts, and imagination.
This event is for educators, teaching artists, students, historians, history lovers—and anyone curious about how everyday Black women in Chicago built enduring legacies and extraordinary futures.
Invisible Giants (Essence McDowell, 2025, 42:00 min)
Workshop Information
Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity (MAMAS)- “Mothers of the Kidnapped” collective workshop
Candace Hunter- “Hearts of Change” workshop
Sadie Woods- “Soundtrack of the Climb: Black Women’s Sonic Worlds” workshop
Between sessions visit the South Side Home Movie Project table, The Black Metropolis Research Consortium and browse a curated selection from Honey & Hue Bookstore.
About the Facilitators:
Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity (MAMAS)
MAMAS is a fiery feminist of color, abolitionist reproductive justice collective hailing from the heart of Chicago. Founded by Black and Arab mother-activists, they center the lived experiences, political struggles, and dreams of mothers & caregivers of color.
“MAMAS was born out of community-based gatherings in Chicagoland, where we shared the collective view that mamas of color and indigenous mamas were contributing crucial abolitionist and decolonial strategies to our city’s social movements. Mamas were expanding meeting spaces to become more intergenerational. We were experts at building multiracial coalitions. We bridged reproductive justice, abolitionist, and anti-militarist organizing. We grew mutual aid efforts when comrades were under fire. We filled the courtrooms when judges harmed our people and we knew how to care for each other while organizing. Yet many social movements tokenized mothers, pushed us to the side, and co-opted or erased our work.
MAMAS was also conceived through our connections with movements in Egypt and Palestine where we had worked with feminists amplifying the urgency of mothering forms of labor in revolutions—like keeping people who were camping in Tahrir Square warm to maintain the sit-in or feeding people in the face of genocide. We birthed MAMAS so that mothers and caregivers of color can access the necessary tools and resources to grow our visions and practices of liberation on our own terms, through the framework of radical mothering.
We believe that those who do mothering and carework in the face of white supremacy, colonization, and militarism, offer the wisdom and strategies needed for our collective freedom dreams.”
Candace Hunter (chlee), a Chicago based artist, creates collage, paintings, installations and performance art. Plainly, she tells stories. Using appropriated materials from magazines, maps, cloth and various reused materials, she offers new landscapes back to the viewer with a glimpse of history and admiration of the beautiful.
A highly respected artist in the Midwest, chlee’s most recent honors include the Elevate Climate Changemakers Award (2022), 3Arts Next Level Award (2021) and the Tim and Helen Meier Foundation Award (2020).
Hunter’s most recent notoriety has come from her Brown Limbed Girls series, which are painted and collaged 20 x 20 inch works, more than 130 and counting, that were born during the covid 19 pandemic and their sole purpose was to depict brown girls in various states of joy. To date, those images have been featured on Chicago billboards. three book covers, two major shows in New Orleans and Oakland and became the inaugural show for the Narrow Bridge Arts Club in Woodlawn.
Being a stalwart fan of the mind and intellect of writer, Octavia Butler, chlee created an immersive exhibition of Butler’s “Xenogenesis Trilogy” and the “Parables” series at the Hyde Park Art Center.
Sadie Woods is an award-winning post-disciplinary artist, independent curator, and deejay whose work explores the intersections of social movements, cultural memory, and immersive experiences. Through a range of mediums—including sonic art, performance, and installations—she engages with the critical themes and struggles of the American experience while celebrating the richness of diasporic culture. Her deejay sets and orchestral projects, such as the Afrodjia Social Club, focus on the music of the Americas and the Global South, using sound to foster community and collective memory.
Woods has participated in prestigious international residencies and exhibitions, with work featured at the Busan Biennale, Chicago Cultural Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. A prolific collaborator, she has performed alongside notable deejays like Gilles Peterson and Derrick Carter, and produced sonic projects for organizations such as the Chicago Sinfonietta and The Vinyl Factory UK.
Holding a BA from Columbia College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sadie is a Resident Deejay at Lumpen Radio and Wave Farm. Her diverse practice continues to expand the boundaries of art and sound, establishing her as a significant voice in contemporary culture.
About the Resource Partners
Honey & Hue Bookstore is the latest chapter from Raven R. White, founder of Brown Sugar Café & Books. A Chicago native driven by a lifelong passion for literature, Raven has connected thousands of readers with books that inspire, educate, and uplift.
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is an expanding consortium of Chicago-based archives, libraries, and museums. Its mission is to connect all who seek to document, share, understand and preserve Black experiences. Through archival processing initiatives, research fellowships for scholars and artists, archival internships for students, and diverse public programming, the BMRC facilitates increased awareness of the experiences of African American and other African diaspora communities by expanding access to its members’ holdings of materials that document African American and African diaspora culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago.
In 2019, the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), launched in 2005 by Arts + Public Life Director Jacqueline Stewart, joined the APL team, promoting the preservation and accessibility of community-created historical artifacts through collaborations with artists, educators, students, curators, and South Side residents.
The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is a five-part initiative to collect, preserve, digitize, exhibit, and research amateur home movies made by residents of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. We aim to build an alternative, accessible visual record, filling gaps in existing written and visual histories, and ensuring that the diverse experiences and perspectives of South Siders will be available to larger audiences and to future generations.
The SSHMP film vault currently houses more than 400 film reels (8mm, Super 8, 16mm) from 28 South Side families, and the digital archive has expanded to over 12 terabytes of data.