South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC), in partnership with Blanc, presents litany, a group exhibition featuring the work of Candace Hunter, Rhonda Wheatley, Erika Allen, Cydney Lewis, and Sonja Henderson. Curated by SSCAC Public Programs and Engagement Manager jada-amina, litany expands upon a thematic foundation initiated by art historian Bethany Hill, PhD.
litany is an invitation toward Black feminist possibility, liberation in all its forms, and the making of new worlds. A sequence of prayer, a devotion to remembrance, sustainability, and the sacred labor of self and collective care. An answer to a call, present to those who are listening.
Anchored in the understanding that land is both geography and body, structure and memory, the exhibition features sculpture, installation, video, and works on paper that reflect material practices of divination and return. Artists work with stone, wood, fabric, metal, and salvaged objects—gesture as lineage and listening.
Sankofa moves through litany as a force of return—kinetic, embodied, and sovereign. It exalts what is often rendered intangible: the will to remember, recover, and revere what capitalism overlooks.
Throughout the exhibition, materials are transformed through reverence and ritual. A sculptural well speaks to the crisis of water access and the weight of women’s histories. A Black Madonna emerges from melted plastic, transfigured into sacred form. Plants root in speculative soil beneath digital water, forming an ecology of care where decay and renewal coexist. An nkisi is wrapped and adorned, carrying the divine alongside the discarded. Other figures—grounded, watchful—appear equipped not only to endure but to rebuild.
Fragments salvaged from SSCAC’s recently demolished coach house further root litany in place and memory. Once a site of Black artistic production, the space yielded bricks, wood, a mural fragment, and a broken ceramic vessel. Now embedded into the exhibition, these materials are not relics, but memory made material—foundation and offering.
litany emerges from a lineage of Black feminist praxis, where material practices become methodology and remembrance is a means toward transformation. The artists shape a space of speculative assembly, conjuring futures through care, memory, and reclamation.
Initiated by Bethany Hill, PhD candidate, and expanded under the curation of jada-amina, the exhibition moves in dialogue with Black artistic, literary, and ecological movements—carrying forward their calls for liberation, worldbuilding, and collective repair.
About South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC)
Founded in 1940 as part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, South Side Community Art Center is the oldest Black art center in the United States. Located in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, the Center has long served as a cornerstone of Black cultural and artistic life, supporting generations of artists through exhibitions, public programs, and cultural initiatives. Housed in a historic landmark building, SSCAC continues to be a space where history, experimentation, and collective memory converge.
About Blanc Gallery
Established as a contemporary gallery in the heart of Bronzeville, Blanc Gallery engages Black cultural production through a wide range of exhibitions and public programs. The gallery operates as a site for dialogue, community-building, and expansive artistic inquiry, with a focus on work that addresses spiritual, political, and social themes. Blanc’s curatorial and programmatic vision reflects an ongoing commitment to collaboration, critical discourse, and the cultural vitality of Chicago’s South Side.
