Carolyn Shadid Lewis

Carolyn Shadid Lewis is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator whose oral history work tells personal stories of belonging.  Drawing inspiration from her family’s military history and her Irish and Lebanese ancestry, Carolyn’s work explores how memory passes down through generations to shape individuals, families, and nations.

In 2003, she began animating as a flash developer in the Distance Learning Department of the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. Her team made online military coursework for officers who deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. The experience inspired Carolyn’s debut short film, From Twilight ‘til Dawn, an installation and personal animated documentary of her family’s military history across three generations. Screened at film festivals and museums nationally, the film won the award for best documentary at the 2015 Glovebox Short Film and Animation Festival in Boston, MA. Seams, her installation and animated film-in-progress about Irish and Northern Irish women’s labor during the Second World War began in the Sirius Arts Centre Residency Program in Cobh, Ireland. The film is part of the Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program and has won the support of Mass Cultural Council, the Irish Arts Council, the Cork County Council, and Mass Humanities.

InterGeneration, her NEFA New Work New England funded feature-length film, began in the Teen Bridge Program at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts. In 2020, Carolyn worked with eight inner-city teens via zoom to animate the recorded memories of seven Boston elders. Their cross-generational creation is a playful and imaginative journey through the city’s past and present. A glimpse into an educational process, InterGeneration celebrates the beauty and strength of Boston’s neighborhoods of color and the multicultural fabric that can hold community together. In addition to NEFA, InterGeneration was made possible through the support of many organizations, including the Boston Public Health Commission and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Carolyn holds a B.A. in piano performance and visual art from William Jewell College in Liberty, MO. She also received an M.F.A. from the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She lives in Boston with her husband, the musician, Jason Lewis of namelessnumberheadman, and Selma, their young storyteller and animator-in-the-making.