CHICAGO LAWN — There’s a Maya Angelou quote that artist and organizer Shirien Damra thinks about daily.
In an interview with Anderson Cooper on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Angelou told the journalist, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”
Damra uses Angelou’s words to inform her art and work as a social justice organizer, she said. The poet’s quote is also highlighted in Damra’s newest show, “Envisioning Liberation: An Exhibition on Healing, Resistance, and Imagination.”
The exhibit premiered at IMANifest Arts Studios on Friday in a sold out event. Neighbors can still visit the gallery 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday at 2745 W. 63rd St. to see Damra’s work.
“Envisioning Liberation” is Damra’s second collaboration with IMANifest Arts Studios — a gallery owned and operated by community organization Inner-City Muslim Action Network or IMAN. The organization opened the studio in December.
After years on the frontlines as a community organizer, Damra returned to her childhood love for art to sustain her activism when she was feeling burnt out, she said.
People can often list the worldly injustices they don’t want to see, like “Black lives targeted by police, undocumented immigrants sitting cages and Indigenous folks losing their land,” Damra said. Damra’s art empowers communities by imagining a world they do want to see, she said.
She hopes her show will inspire neighbors to tap into their creative muscles, Damra said. Art can be “a powerful catalyst for social justice,” she said.
“Art unlocks our imaginations that have been repressed by living in a society where capitalism and systemic racism have taken over our consciousness in many ways,” Damra said. “It can be a tool to take us to another level and allow us the freedom to imagine and envision the world we want to live in and what we’re building towards.”
IMANifest Arts Studios first displayed Damra’s brightly printed art in December at the grand opening and premiere of “The People Made This,” a celebration of IMAN’s 25 years of work.
IMAN opened the studio as another touchstone to revitalize West Englewood and Chicago Lawn’s 63rd Street corridor. IMAN has operated a Food and Wellness Center at 1216 W. 63rd St. since 2021. The Go Green Community Fresh Market, 1207 W. 63rd St., opened with a packed celebration in 2022.
IMAN has a “deep investment in wanting to change the system that we are currently living in,” said Binta Diallo, IMAN’s associate director of arts and culture. The organization is intentional about collaborating with socially conscious artists to merge arts and culture with their organizing and advocacy work, Diallo said.
“Envisioning Liberation” continues IMAN’s vision of “connecting disconnected communities and nurturing communal transformation,” Diallo said.
“It’s important for people to see not only the harm that was done but the healing that can come out of that,” Diallo said. “Through this exhibit, we truly are able to do what we say we would like to do, which is to reimagine the world as it could be. That comes from a beautiful organizing framework we’re grateful to be a part of.”
Damra started creating the pieces featured in “Envisioning Liberation” in 2019, she said. That work stretched into 2020 — a year critical to “catapulting awareness” about global injustices as protesters marched in the name of George Floyd and a deadly pandemic swept the world.
Growing up in Chicago in a working-class Palestinian refugee family informed her understanding of “the interconnectedness between the struggles of many marginalized communities,” Damra said.
Every community faces unique and nuanced challenges, but “classism, racism, colonialism and patriarchy are tightly woven in this country and abroad,” Damra said. “Envisioning Liberation” emphasizes the importance of understanding that intersectionality, Damra said.
“I want to bring together and uplift other liberation movements because I see myself as part of a larger community demanding justice to make a better world on all fronts,” Damra said. “We’re connected in so many ways, and it is important to come together to recognize these systems, because if we want a better world, we have to do it together.”
Damra’s art exemplifies communal unity and peace, she said. In her pieces, chains are broken, walls are town down and flowers bloom to “symbolize freedom and growth,” Damra said. Characters always have closed eyes. The style, popular in Eastern art, symbolizes inward reflection, Damra said.
“Reflection is internal, but it affects the community around you, how you operate in the world and how you treat one another in the community,” Damra said. “If we want to change the world, that requires reflection internally and as a society.”
Damra intentionally makes her art accessible and easy for people to recreate or print, she said. People have sewn her designs onto jackets, displayed them on lawns and printed them on signs for protests, Damra said.
“Envisioning Liberation” continues Damra’s commitment to creating and sharing accessible illustrations, she said. When neighbors reach the end of the exhibit, they’ll find an “interactive piece” where they can contribute words or art, Damra said.
Neighbors won’t have to take a trip Downtown to see art, Diallo said. “Envisioning Liberation” is theirs, Diallo said.
“When guests leave the exhibit, I hope they have a sense of internalized joy that will persuade them to continue working on these movements,” Diallo said. “I want them to see the art and see themselves within the pieces and the stories of others that have been in the struggle alongside them.”
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