Peter Bruun, I Am, Memoir series, 2019
Introduction
Grief, loss, and mourning are universal experiences and integral to the human condition. Yet in today’s society, grief often remains a taboo, almost unmentionable subject. The ways we express loss, and the extent to which it is socially accepted, can stir unease, discomfort, and apprehension. Whether for those we love, a way of life, a sense of belonging, or an aspect of our identity, how we navigate grief profoundly shapes our physical and mental well-being.
Working in a variety of media, exhibition artists—Peter Bruun, Bethany Collins, Jordan Douglas, Mariam Ghani, Lydia Kern, John Killacky, Nirmal Raja, Jamel Robinson—convey both personal and collective encounters with grief as they explore themes of memory, empowerment, transition, and endurance. Do We Say Goodbye? challenges the finality of loss and invites us to embrace grief as a shared yet deeply individual journey.
—Heather Ferrell, Curator and Director of Exhibitions
Jamel Robinson, A Fight by Any Other Name Wouldn’t Be FREEDOM, BCA Center installation, 2025
Checklist
PETER BRUUN
from the Memoir series
Aftermath, 2021
Hair, 2020
Hello, 2019
I Am, 2021
Love after Love, 2019
Never, 2019
Sunday, 2019
Think About, 2021
charcoal and pastel pencil, ink and gouache
15 x 11" each
PETER BRUUN
You Once Had an Aunt, 2022
You Once Had an Aunt in Pain, 2023
You Once Had an Aunt Who Died too Young, 2023
You Once Had an Aunt Who Disappeared in the Dark, 2024
You Once Had an Aunt Who Fell in Love with Heroin, 2022
You Once Had an Aunt Who Lied, 2025
oil paint and pencil on gessoed
birch-ply panel
7.5 x 7.5 x.5" each
BETHANY
COLLINS
I can not remember, 2023
blind embossed Stonehenge paper
12 x 54 x 1" (12" x 9" x 1" each)
Courtesy of the Artist and Patron Gallery, Chicago
JORDAN
DOUGLAS
Things of My Mother, Contact Grid #1, 2025
archival pigment print
26 x 28"
JORDAN DOUGLAS
Things of My Mother, Contact Quad #5, 2025
archival pigment print
28 x 26"
JORDAN DOUGLAS
Things of My Mother, Contact Triptych #9, 2025
Things of My Mother, Contact Triptych #10, 2025
archival pigment print
19 x 42"
MARIAM GHANI
There’s a Hole in the World Where You Used to Be, 2024
single channel video (15:30 min)
Courtesy of the Artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York
LYDIA KERN
Double Sorrow Double Joy, 2023
double-headed sunflower from June farm (planted after Vermont floods), embalming thread, resin, dyed ribbon, and wood
25 x 16 x 1"
LYDIA KERN
Ghost Twin, 2023
roses, bleeding hearts, double yolk egg shell from YundWell farm, embalming thread, bells, mother’s ultrasound, daisy, vinyl fabric, resin, foxgloves from the Black Forest, wood, and ink
38 x 35 x 1"
LYDIA KERN & DANIEL CARDON
A Vigil, 2025
installation: three folding chairs, melted beeswax and candles, resin, and video (3:06 min)
72 x 100 x 120"
JOHN KILLACKY
Corpus, 2025
installation: cotton, polyester, sublimation print, latex, burlap, zinc nails, and video (6:40 min)
70 x 72 x 96"
NIRMAL RAJA
Material Remains II, 2021
Material Remains III, 2021
porcelain slip dipped shirt, glazed and fired, custom printed fabric pillow, and custom pedestal
40 x 22 x 22"
NIRMAL RAJA
Wrung Out, 2021
porcelain slip-dipped fabric, glazed and fired, and wooden dowel
24 x 42 x 9"
NIRMAL RAJA
Peace Offering, 2021
sumi ink, gouache, silver, and yellow ink on Hanji (Korean handmade paper)
60 x 114"
JAMEL ROBINSON
Are You Staying For Me?, 2023
acrylic paint on canvas
54 x 80"
JAMEL ROBINSON
A Fight by Any Other Name
Wouldn’t Be FREEDOM, 2023
acrylic, rice, rope, nails, pennies, and boxing gloves on wood and canvas
52 x 24"
All works are Courtesy of the Artist and available for purchase unless otherwise noted
Biographies
Peter Bruun (b. 1963, Copenhagen, Denmark) received his BA in art history from Williams College, Williamstown, MA, and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. Some of his awards include Creative Baltimore Fund Grant. and the Baltimore City Health Equity Leadership Award. National and international artist residencies include the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Putney, VT; the School of Leadership, Kabul, Afghanistan; and as a Cultural Envoy for the U.S. State Department for I Value the Voices, Ramallah, Palestine. His work has been exhibited widely, including at The Waldo Theatre, Waldoboro, ME; Area 405, Zo Gallery, and Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD; Stevenson University, and Owings Mills, among others. He currently lives and works in Damariscotta, Maine.
Bethany Collins (b. 1984, Montgomery, AL) received a BA from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and an MFA from Georgia State University, Atlanta. Collins has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including: 3Arts Next Level Visual Arts Award, Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize, a Joan Mitchell Fellowship, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Collins’ work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions, including: Seattle Art Museum, WA; the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, AL; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Prospect.6, New Orleans, LA; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, CO, among others. She lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
Jordan Douglas (b. 1967, New York, NY) received a BA from the University of Vermont, Burlington. His work has been exhibited throughout New England and the Northeast at venues including, Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA, Studio Place Arts, Barre, VT, Artspace 106, Metro Gallery, and New New Art Studio, Burlington, VT. He has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Vermont, and Champlain College, and currently lives and works in Burlington, VT, where he teaches photography at Saint Michael’s College.
Peter Bruun, Sunday, Memoir series, 2019
Bethany Collins, I cannot remember, 2023
Jordan Douglas, Things of My Mother, Contact Grid #1, 2025
Mariam Ghani (b. 1978, New York, NY) received her BA from New York University and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Ghani has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies, including the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center (CUNY), and the New York Public Library. Her work has also received support from Creative Capital, Art Matters Foundation, 18th Street Arts Center, Los Angeles, CA, and Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law, New Haven, CT. Ghani’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. She currently lives and works in Bennington, Vermont, where she is faculty at Bennington College.
Mariam Ghani, There’s a Whole World Where You Used to Be, 2024
Lydia Kern (b. 1992, Boston, MA) received her BS in social work and BA in studio art from the University of Vermont, Burlington. She has been the recipient of several awards and residencies, including the 2024 Diane Gabriel Visual Artist Award, Burlington City Arts, VT, Lab Program, Mexico City, Mexico; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; the Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; and the Artist in Circulation Residency at Champlain College, Burlington, VT. Her work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions across the United States and internationally, including at Flowerhead Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Epsilon Spires, Brattleboro, VT; The Current, Stowe, VT; Capital Region Arts Center, Troy, NY; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY; and Overlap, Newport, RI, among others. She is currently developing an outdoor installation for the Great Streets: Main Street Project in Burlington, VT. She lives and works between New York and Vermont.
Lydia Kern, Ghost Twin, 2024
John Killacky (b. 1952, Chicago, Illinois) received a BA from Hunter College, New York, NY, and served two terms as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 2019-2022. His resume reflects both the depth and breadth of his lifelong contribution to the worlds of visual and performing arts, and community-engaged nonprofit work; his previous roles include: Program Director of the philanthropic San Francisco Foundation; Executive Director of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Curator of the performing arts at the Walker Center for the Arts, Minneapolis, MN; and, Executive Director of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT, among others. He has been honored with awards such as the Sally Ordway Irvine Award in Artistic Vision and Vermont Arts Council’s Kannenstine Award for Arts Advocacy and has been an artist in residence at Champlain College Art Gallery, Burlington, VT, and The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA, among others. His work has been exhibited and televised nationally and internationally since the mid-1990s including on Free Speech TV, PBS, Cultura24, Holland, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA, Junction Arts & Media, White River Junction, VT, and more. He continues to live and work in Burlington, VT.
Nirmal Raja (b. 1968, Chennai, India) received a BA from St. Francis College in Hyderabad, India, a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She has been the recipient of awards including, “Graduate of the Decade” from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship for individual artists, and the Mildred L. Harpole Artist of the Year 2022 award from the Milwaukee Art Board. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including at, the Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, Boundary Gallery, Chicago, IL, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, Artistry, Minneapolis, MN, Hinterland, Denver, CO, and the Shrishti Gallery, Hyderabad, India. Raja currently lives and works in Cambridge, MA.
Jamel Robinson (b. 1979, Harlem, NY) received a BA from Albany State University, NY. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work and contributions to the art world, including as an Honoree of the Hudson River Museum, and the subject of the annual “Jamel Robinson Day” as proclaimed by the City of Yonkers, New York. Residencies include: the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church Day School, and Hudson River Museum, New York, NY; Long Meadow Art Residency, Marlboro, MA; and The 8th House, Rochester, VT; among others. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Harlem, NY, Gallery 495, Catskill, NY, The Atrium by Bond Collective, New York, NY, Similien Art, Miami, FL; 8th House Projects, Mexico City, Mexico; Gallery Von Schmordenfaden, Copenhagen, Denmark; and EFERYA Gallery, Paris, France, among others. He resides in Harlem, New York.
John Killacky, Corpus, 2025
Nirmal Raja, Material Remains III, 2021
Jamel Robinson, Are You Staying for Me, 2023
Related Programs
Do We Say Goodbye? A Conversation
Thursday, October 23, 2025, 6pm
Dr. Elizabeth Goldstein of the Vermont Association of Psychoanalytic Studies leads a conversation with exhibition artists John Killacky and Lydia Kern, and community member Ernie Pomerleau, on themes of grief and its connection to creativity and mental well-being.
Mariam Ghani Artist Talk
Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 6pm
Do We Say Goodbye? artist Mariam Ghani discusses her 2024 film, There’s a Whole in the World Where You Use to Be . Programmatic Partner: Middlebury College.
BCA thanks our Do We Say Goodbye? reflections contributors: Elizabeth Goldstein, PhD, Jessica Houser, PhD, Mina Levisky-Wohl, LP, FIPA, Elizabeth Myers, MPS, LCAT, LCMHC, Jean Pieniadz, PhD, Erin Roland, PhD, Joel Shapiro, LICSW, ACSW, and Aleta Vail, PhD
Do We Say Goodbye? Grief, Loss, and Mourning is supported in part by the Maslow Family Foundation, Bill Gottesman and Debra Lopez Gottesman, and Ernie Pomerleau. Programmatic Partners: Vermont Association of Psychoanalytic Studies (VAPS) and Middlebury College. Hospitality sponsor: Lake Champlain Chocolates. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts.