On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival
Playlists
Tell us your stories...
Over the years that we have been working on the Loss and Absence project, it has been very touching to hear the stories, anecdotes, and ideas that these words, loss and absence, conjure for others based on their own experiences– be it a childhood memory, or something related to their work or profession. Most interesting are the varied avenues of conversation as we find solace in one another's discoveries, and triumphs through those moments.
What is loss & absence? What words, memories, ideas and concepts do these words mean for you from life experience, your line of work, or other connections?
Please add your thoughts, and stories. Include links to music, lecture(s), podcast(s) or video(s) that resonates with you to be added to these playlists.
Thank you!
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These links are inspired by the collaborative exhibition project “On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning & Survival” between artists/ educators connected to the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute — Anne Wilson, Nneka Kai, Isaac Facio and L Vinebaum. As living objects, textiles can reveal a great deal about how humans cope with loss and absence, across time and place. Drawing primarily on textile objects from the Textiles collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition explores physical, psychic, spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic responses to various kinds of losses and absences. The exhibition will display objects of corporeal and psychological loss, mourning, and trauma; together with objects of resistance, survival, healing and recuperation. These will include burial shrouds, mourning and mending samplers, funerary hangings and garments, coffin covers, and fragments. The exhibition will be organized spatially and conceptually around themes of death, reflection, passage, trauma, memory/memorial, survival, resistance, conservation/preservation, and healing.
The exhibition will be in view in the Textile galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago the 6th of September 2025 through the 15th of March 2026. More to come soon!
