Our Story
Arts + Public Life
In Fall 2019, South Side Home Movie Project joined Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago as an expansion of APL's ongoing commitment to Cultural Preservation. Arts + Public Life is a dynamic hub of exploration, expression, and exchange that fosters neighborhood vibrancy through the arts on the South Side of Chicago. Cultural Stewardship is Arts + Public Life’s practice of honoring local histories, supporting networks of memory holders, and amplifying the value of these legacies through the arts in ongoing conversation with South Side generations past, present and future.
Family Donors
Family archivists, local historians, amateur filmmakers, kids who watched home movies on an 8mm projector - SSHMP donors are family members who wanted to preserve a piece of their family legacy and share it as a piece of Chicago history. Whether they lived on the South Side for generations or only briefly, our donors offer an intimate window into a family’s life and a rare look at the lives of South Siders in the 20th century, through their own eyes.
Resources and Funding
South Side Home Movie Project is grateful for the generous support provided by UChicago's Division of Humanities, Humanities Computing, Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture (in part by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Franke Institute for Humanities, Film Studies Center, Women’s Board, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Academic Technology Solutions and Office of Civic Engagement’s Community Program Accelerator.
SSHMP is also grateful for the vital support provided by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Illinois Humanities, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, and Elizabeth Crown and Bill Wallace.
Team
Jacqueline Stewart
Founder and Director
University of Chicago professor of Cinema and Media Studies Jacqueline Stewart (AM ’93, PhD ’99) is the founder and director of the South Side Home Movie Project. Dr. Stewart’s research and teaching explore African American film cultures from the origins of the medium to the present, as well as the archiving and preservation of moving images, and “orphan” media histories, including nontheatrical, amateur and activist film and video. Stewart is Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and is also the host of Silent Sunday Nights on Turner Classic Movies. She is author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005), the co-edited book William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission (2021), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. She is the co-curator of the L.A. Rebellion Preservation Project at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and locally, curated both Black Cinema House and Cinema 53, a film series at the historic Harper Theater in Hyde Park.
Camille Townson
Manager
Camille Townson (they/them) is an audiovisual archivist, artist, and organizer. They have been with the South Side Home Movie Project since they were awarded the AMIA Pathways Fellowship in 2022. As the South Side Home Movie Project’s Manager, Camille is honored to work closely with families to preserve and share their home movies as well as the artists, students, researchers and community members who creatively reuse these personal treasures. They earned their B.S. in Cognitive Science: Human-Computer Interaction and Design from University of California at San Diego in 2020 and specialize in small-gauge celluloid, digital preservation, and community-centered accessibility.
Sloane Olsen
BMRC FOCAS Intern
Sloane Olsen (she/her) is an MLIS student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and holds a BA in Film, Television, and Media from the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on audiovisual and digital preservation and web archiving. She supports the SSHMP as part of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) FOCAS Internship Program.
Ira Beare
Processing Archivist and Cataloger (Getty Black Visual Arts Archives)
Ira Beare (they/them) is a film archivist, programmer, and writer. They hold an MA in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University and a BA in Film & Media Studies from Smith College. They have a decade of experience in community arts and archives. Their research interests include feminist cinema, organizing histories, and Chicago arts.
Avery LaFlamme
Graduate Student Intern
Avery LaFlamme (he/him) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. His work focuses on Black film history and Black documentary and nonfiction filmmaking. His work at SSHMP supports archival initiatives, artist engagements, and public programming. He is the editor and producer of the Spinning Home Movies series.