On Friday, August 23, the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative and Chicago’s Navy Pier celebrated the installation of Alison Saar’s To Sit A While, a sculpture of prolific playwright Lorraine Hansberry surrounded by five bronze chairs, with a special dedication ceremony at Lake Stage in Polk Bros Park. Navy Pier will serve as the sculpture’s permanent home.
See photos below!
The event featured remarks from Navy Pier’s Chief Administrative & Equity Officer Arnaldo Rivera, Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Clinée Hedspeth, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, The Lillys’ former Executive Director Julia Jordan, sculpture artist Alison Saar, and Navy Pier’s Vice President of Arts, Culture, & Engagement, Erika Taylor. The ceremony also included performances of works by Lorraine Hansberry Initiative fellows Amalia Oliva Rojas and Danielle Stagger, with performance curation by Congo Square Theatre’s Artistic Director Ericka Ratcliff, as well as a poem reading by writer, playwright, and poet Mahogany L. Browne. The evening concluded with an outdoor screening of the film A Raisin in the Sun (1961).
The event included readings of excerpts from works from Lorraine Hansberry Initiative fellows, including Amalia Oliva Rojas’ In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too (or The F*ck Is You Lookin’At?), directed by Miranda Gonzales, and Danielle Stagger’s RENT FREE, directed by Malkia Stampley. It also featured a pop-up performance from Imani Elizabeth Jackson, Ming Joi Washington, and Maya Odim.
The sculpture, titled To Sit A While, features the figure of Hansberry surrounded by five bronze chairs, each representing a different aspect of her life and work. The life-size chairs are an invitation to the public to do just that: sit with her and think. The sculpture is a gift from the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative to Navy Pier and the city of Chicago, Hansberry’s birthplace. The sculpture has been traveling the U.S. since 2022 as a part of the Initiative’s mission to honor the great American playwright and civil rights leader’s legacy while investing in those following in her footsteps. Stops on the tour included New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
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