Weaving through Grief with Bryana Bibbs

Bryana Bibbs’s work takes you on a touching journey of grief.

Exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center, the repertoire is divided into three bodies of work, connected by a central threshold. The pink room greets your attention first. The space recalls fuzzy and nostalgic feelings with large-scale textile pieces that resemble carpets and home decor. The wall color is the same as Bibb’s family home; it is a recreation of a familiar space, a sanctuary of mundane objects that hold core memories.

The central room contrasts the softness with a series of works in black and white. Bibbs continues to centralize these “mundane” objects found in her family home by creating xeroxed prints of them. They are the traces left behind by her family members’ existence and of their declining health. The layered prints are like weavings but without the comforting textures. They emulate X-rays, alluding to hospitals, illness, and heaviness.

The final room ties back to the pink room by displaying small pieces of fabric interwoven with more objects from her family home. Candy wrappers, dice, cards. It’s a documentation of using ritual art-making to process profound feelings of loss. It reveals how the complexity of grief is a form of weaving: every strand of emotions, whether it's comfort, pain, or joy, comes together to create beautiful, multidimensional memories. This final space gives a sensation of closure in the grieving process, suggesting the therapeutic aid of weaving itself. You can sit and peek back on the previous spaces with the pink walls shining back at you like a fond memory. The work is called Two-hundred and fifty-one days to account for the time Bibbs wove as she grieved.