Family Day | Press Play
January 11, 202511:00 am - 3:00 pm
Admission is free to Family Day attendees.
Families participate in Family Day | Pocket Con, December 9, 2023. Photo: Alexis Ellers.
About the Event
Perform, watch, and be the director of your own story. Spot videos and films throughout the museum.
Access Information
ASL interpretation is provided at this event.
To request additional accessibility services like audio description, please contact us via email at [email protected] or call 312-397-4076.
About the Artists
Margaret Bialis is an animation director and artist currently living in Chicago. She is inspired by sincere storytelling in both narrative and non-narrative disciplines. Her short films and commissioned pieces have screened at Pictoplasma, the Chicago International Film Festival, and Encounters Film Festival, among other festivals and galleries. Her client work includes directing and animating projects for MTV, Apple, FX, Duolingo, National Geographic, Discord, and Bento Box. She has experience directing music videos for artists like The Offspring, Beach Bunny, Andy Shauf, and more. She currently teaches animation at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the Marwen Foundation and is working on her newest animated short film, You Are Here.
Sam Lewis is an actor, poet, vocalist, and recently a puppeteer. He calls himself an accidental puppeteer because, in the early 2000s, he came across a vintage Black Americana marionette in an attic, which started him on an unexpected puppetry journey. Lewis explores racial issues and negative iconography with that marionette, whom he renamed Jus Hambone. Sam has grown to have a deep love for puppetry, which he feels is a dynamic storytelling art form. He also gets to explore his love of theater and music in his work, which he is passionate about. In late 2018, Lewis learned of an incredible family history that has taken him back over 200 years. That revelation redirected his practice. He commissioned the creation of puppets to unpack these histories. Since then, he has been workshopping new work in a fulfilling collaboration with his two sons while continuing his family research, writing a collection of stories for a full-length puppetry and performance piece titled Finding My Place.
Funding
Support for Family Programs is provided in part by the MCA Women’s Board Family Education Initiative, Northern Trust, and Peoples Gas Community Fund.
