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 civilian 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, a 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 the Irish Arts Council, the Cork County Council, and Mass Humanities. InterGeneration is Carolyn’s first feature-length documentary and was made possible through the support of many organizations, including The New England Foundation for the Arts, 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 was also a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland and 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.