My most significant curatorial project is On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago Textile Galleries, from September 6, 2025–March 15, 2026
Curated by L Vinebaum, Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, and Anne Wilson
On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival explores themes of death, grief, care, resistance, and survival, through the medium of textiles.
Drawn primarily from the Art Institute of Chicago's Textile collection, On Loss and Absence features over 100 textiles from diverse cultures and parts of the world. These works date from antiquity to the present, from ancient fragments to contemporary works. The exhibit includes a selection of objects like photographs, prints, jewelry, and sculptures from other museum departments. On Loss and Absence features artworks by 11 contemporary artists, some of which were specially created for the exhibition.
The exhibition is organized around four central themes: Death and Mourning, Transition of Realms, Care and Repair, and Resistance and Survival.Throughout history, textiles have brought people together as part of rituals devoted to grief, loss, death and transition. Textiles can help memorialize and remember lost loved ones; and maintain connections to ancestors, cultures, places, and communities. And they have been central to resisting oppression and erasure, as well as healing from trauma.
On Loss and Absence marks the first time that artists worked with the Art Institute's textiles collection as guest curators to create a major exhibition. The project is deeply informed by haptic and hands-on knowledge, derived from rigorous material engagements in our individual practices and from years of study and training. The curators also collaborated with living artists and scholars with ancestral and generational knowledge to help guide and contextualize our vision.
Senior museum advisor: Melinda Watt, Chair and Christa C. Mayer Thurman Curator in Textiles
All gallery images photographed by Nathan Keay for the Art Institute of Chicago
The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly book, On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival Edited by L Vinebaum, Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai, and Anne Wilson
Published by the Art Institute of Chicago Press, 2025. Distributed by Yale University Press.
With contributions by Jerry Bleem, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Gustavo da Silva, Wafa Ghnaim, Jen Chen-su Huang, Cristian Koepfli, Alipio Melo, Sarah Molina, Maria Jose Murillo, Lucinda Pelton, Sharbreon Plummer, Jenni Sorkin, Barbara Teller Ornelas, Lynda Teller Pete, Cybele Tom, Melinda Watt, Danitza Willka and Folayemi Wilson
On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival is the first major publication to explore the role of textiles in helping humans across cultures negotiate loss and grief.
Read the curators Introduction
My curatorial work also includes projects in Chicago and Montreal. Several have provided a platform for students as part of my work as an educator.
2021
Making in the Aftermath at Weinberg Newton Gallery, Chicago
2013
Mixtape, Flaxman Library, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2011
LIVE / AFTERLIVES, La Centrale Gallery Powerhouse, Montreal
Interfaces, Concordia University, Montreal
Storied Sites, Nuit Blanche, Montreal, with Kelly Thompson and Kathleen Vaughan
2010
The F-Word: feminism, fashion, fibres, CTTRLlab, Montreal
2000-2001
As the co-Director of the student-run VAV Gallery (Visual Arts Visuels) at Concordia University, I curated the exhibition and performance art | technology | interactivity by performance and new media artist Diana Burgoyne. Together with co-Director VM Robinson, I juried and organized over 20 exhibitions by student artists, including In Performance: an exhibition of time-based and performance works (2001); Activist Art: an exhibition of socially-engaged art (2000); and Out of Order at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery at Concordia University.