Sonja Henderson is an award-winning, Chicago-based sculptor, educator, and community organizer. She embraces restorative justice practices to create communal placemaking and safe spaces for healing, rest, and play.
A premiere memorial artist, Sonja received Congressional Recognition for the life-size cast-bronze Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Memorial honoring the life and legacy of Civil Rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley. This seminal monument is recognized by Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, and President Biden, and will become part of the Till National Park, the nation’s first noncontiguous Monument.
Sonja also designed and sculpted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial. This 42-foot plaza, with three 10.5-foot-high hand-carved pillars with curved benches and community tiles, tells the story of MLK’s Chicago-based Fair Housing Marches in 1966.
Sonja curates intimate cultural spaces while also building monumental structures, constructed from cast bronze, carved brick, organic material, mosaics, and textiles.
She creates public installations and placemaking like The September 11th Wall of Remembrance, centering collective mourning and storytelling while also co-curating international cultural activations like the Rwandan Girls Exchange, in which 12 high school–aged girls living with or impacted by HIV/AIDS traveled from Chicago to Kigali, Rwanda and back to build international community, destigmatize HIV/AIDS and to just be young girls.
Sonja is now a shortlisted artist who has submitted inspired concept pieces for the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, We Shall Rise: Mother Jones Monument, Austin “Soul City” Gateways, and the Naomi Anderson Suffragette Memorial.
In January 2020, Sonja founded the Mothers Healing Circle for mothers who lost children to violence. The Mothers Healing Circle seeks to rejuvenate Mothers and rebuild their surviving families by introducing woman-centered and ancestral practices like guided meditation, sonic and vibrational healing, movement and yoga, horticultural and massage therapy, nutrition and plant-based medicines. MHC believes that healing our Mothers is the first step in healing the family, community, and nation. In 2023, the mothers raised a temporal “quilt-flag” monument entitled We Are Made From Stars: A Flying Quilt Memorial and published a booklet in honor of their children. This legacy project and site activation was a community healing felt throughout Lawndale and Chicago.
Sonja writes: “Public memorials are a way for us all to grieve, honor and celebrate these special people while also creating space for collective healing around traumatic events. Memorials are spaces of sacred placemaking that center communal needs while giving reverence to the land in which they are built.”
Profile caption: Indigenous Door Knockers Profile image by: Sadie Woods
Altars and Ancestors
Sonja Henderson
Featured Artworks
Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Memorial
Mamie and Emmett parting the heavens at the monument unveiling
Sonja Henderson
Cast bronze life size figure and podium reuniting Mamie and Emmett Till and celebrating a Civil Rights Heroine
Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Memorial
Congressionally Recognized Monument to be included in Till National Park
Sonja Henderson
Cast bronze life size figure and podium reuniting Mamie and Emmett Till and celebrating a Civil Rights Heroine
Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Memorial
Emmett Till's essence of childhood tableau
Sonja Henderson
Cast bronze life size figure and podium reuniting Mamie and Emmett Till and celebrating a Civil Rights Heroine
Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Memorial
Till Plaza and the Mamie Till-Mobley monument
Connor Steinkamp photo credit
Till Plaza designed by Cordogan Clark. Site lines from Chicago to Mississippi
MLK Living Memorial
Memorial tribute to MLK and the 1966 Fair Housing Marches
Sonja Henderson
Carved brick stele, circular plaza, seating, community tiles
MLK Living Memorial
"King Struck with a Brick" tableau
Sonja Henderson
Low relief carved brick stele with historic imagery of King struck by a grick
MLK Living Memorial
Sonja Henderson carving Beloved Community imagery on stele
Sonja Henderson
Multi-generational women sitting on stoop, Beloved Community imagery
BOTY Lanterns
Five corten steel lanterns, pathway and mosaic seating for Back of the Yards community
Andrew Kirkland photo credit
Five 10'x4'x4' corten steel lanterns lit from within with community created pattern cutouts
BOTY Lanterns
Damen Ave. Open Air Plaza Lanterns and pathway with seating
Andrew Kirkland photo credit
Five 10'x4'x4' corten steel lanterns lit from within with community created pattern cutouts
We Are Made From Stars: A Flying Quilt Memorial
Mothers Healing Circle celebrating their children during our quilt flying ceremony
Mari Jane Wemken
Digitized hand-made quilts flown in the Sears Sunken Garden, Lawndale
We Are Made From Stars: A Flying Quilt Memorial
Mothers Healing Circle celebrating their children during our quilt flying ceremony
Mari Jane Wenken
Digitized hand-made quilts flown in the Sears Sunken Garden, Lawndale
La Llorona Performance
Sonja Henderson and Esther Gamez leading the Llorona Procession
Sadie Woods photo credit
Handmade garment with embroidered content, mixed media wearable sculpture on participants
"Indigenous Door Knockers"
Sonja Henderson putting on her mixed media headdress
Sadie Woods photo credit
Palm, vines, red wool yarn