SoNa Chicago is pleased to host a special one-time artist exhibition and discussion called “Material Witness.”

Material Witness is a dialogue in print and poetry featuring the work of Boston-based artist, Nancy Marks. The event explores parallels between 1940’s Nazi-occupied Europe and the actions of ICE and Customs and Border Control in our communities today. Nancy is a mixed-media artist with extensive background in painting, printmaking and papermaking. She combines her background in public health with her art practice to lead community-based conversations about complex social issues. This current exhibition centers on work born from her experience as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She delves into her mother’s harrowing girlhood in Nazi-occupied France and the legacy of intergenerational trauma that remains. The exhibition also confronts the chilling parallels between her mother’s ordeal in the 1940s and the realities faced by immigrants in the U.S. today.

The issues explored in Material Witness amplify themes in Jack Poker’s exhibition, Beneath an Economy of Sky, currently on view in the gallery. Both shows contemplate the impact of being forced to leave precious livelihoods behind; in Jack’s show, when homes, communities, values, and culture are abandoned, and in Nancy’s, as immigrants and others are taken by ICE from their homes, cars, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Quotes from her mother’s memoir are displayed with 25 of Nancy’s beautiful and haunting drawings, along with quotes from immigrants who today are experiencing the fear of capture and imprisonment. The exhibition is a search for clarity, an artistic response to the imperative to recognize our shared humanity and, in understanding, to choose the next right path.

From 2:00 – 2:30 pm, guests will have time to view Nancy’s drawings and poetry. Then at 2:30 pm, the presentation and discussion will begin. Refreshments will be served.

Image credit: Boy Hiding under Couch, Drypoint, 6” x 8” by Nancy Marks.