On Grief Island, you wait.

On Grief Island, nothing exists but your breaking heart.

On Grief Island, time stops and gives into the ebbs and flows of tears, sleep, functional freeze, and occasionally, something like normalcy.

On Grief Island, everything is OK and nothing is OK.

On Grief Island, the sun keeps you warm even though you can’t see it.

On Grief Island, you are always welcome.

With a somber beach scene at its center, Grief Island reimagines and makes tangible the isolation and self-indulgence that arrives in the aftermath of crushing loss.

At the start of 2020, Akinbola began turning her gouache paintings, inspired by family photographs, into weavings. These works seek to expand the affective possibilities of what photographs communicate. In Grief Island, Akinbola expands this body of work, experimenting with the forms of sculpture and installation by attaching woven portraits on canvas to collapsible beach chair frames, which sit on a conspicuous island of sand in the middle of the storefront. The inclusion of sentimental items such as a red Coleman cooler from her youth and crushed cans of “Grief Tonic” further contribute to the transformation of the space into a site of grieving and remembering.

Bimbola Akinbola is an artist, performer, and educator currently based in Chicago. Working at the intersection of theory, performance, and visual art, her scholarly and artistic work is concerned with the complicated and nagging nature of belonging, queerness, and the concept of family. Incorporating a variety of practices ranging from painting, weaving and collage, to durational line dancing, her work explores mark-making and performance as modes of organization, remembrance, and repair.

Roman Susan Art Foundation celebrates and shares the work of artists in the Great Lakes region. We create cultural engagements that provide resources and paid opportunities for artists. We are Chicago-based. We are artist-led. We are experimental and learning. For more info, please visit romansusan.org.

For further info contact art@romansusan.org

Images courtesy of Bimbola Akinbola

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

Roman Susan Art Foundation NFP is supported in part by 160 individual donors, Gen Ops Plus Grants from The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Hyde Park Art Center Artists Run Chicago Fund, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, 6018North, AD3 Innovation Bootcamp, An Sylvia Exhibitions, Foundation Source, Lucky Pierre, Story Luck, and in-kind support from Cargo Collective, Lawyers for the Creative Arts, and Sloane Communications. To support this ongoing work, please visit romansusan.org/support.

Official Website

More events on this date

Tags: Bimbola Akinbola, Bimbola Akinbola: Grief Island, Chicago, Grief Island, Rogers Park, Roman Susan