To Sit A While

To Sit A While

The Lorraine Hansberry Sculpture
Open Daily | Polk Bros Park

Discover “To Sit A While (Alison Saar, 2022),” a remarkable sculpture located in Polk Bros Park at Navy Pier. Presented by the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, this installation honors Chicago native Lorraine Hansberry and invites visitors to pause and reflect. Experience this unique piece of art and connect with Hansberry’s legacy.

The sculpture, titled To Sit A While, features the figure of Hansberry surrounded by five bronze chairs, each representing a different aspect of her life and work. The life-size chairs are an invitation to the public to do just that: sit with her and think. The sculpture will be a permanent installation and a gift from the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative to Navy Pier and the city of Chicago, Hansberry’s birthplace.

As the birthplace of Hansberry and the setting of A Raisin in the Sun, Chicago will be the permanent home of the sculpture after a national tour of major cities including New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In each city, the Initiative worked with local theaters and social justice organizations to showcase the work of contemporary writers of color concurrent with the sculpture’s placement. The sculpture of Hansberry has been traveling the U.S. since 2022 as a part of the Initiative’s mission to honor the great American playwright and civil rights leader’s legacy while investing in those following in her footsteps.

The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative was created by The Lillys (conceived by Lynn Nottage and Julia Jordan) to honor Lorraine Hansberry’s legacy through the tour and permanent placement of a figurative sculpture of the playwright, while investing in those following in her footsteps through the creation of a fellowship which supports the living expenses of women and non-binary writers of color during their pursuit of graduate degrees.