Through exploring familial archives, local collections, and diasporic memories, this presentation will expand the site-specific sculptural portals created by the artist, ebere agwuncha, for the exhibition To Be Remembered: Woven Matters of the Heart. sculptural portals incorporate oral histories from agwuncha’s parents, who immigrated from Nigeria to Chicago in the 1980s, alongside traditional Igbo craft to expand the significance of art-making through an active archiving practice. This event offers a deeper dive into the research and personal history behind agwuncha’s installation, giving the audience an intimate look into an artist’s process.

ebere agwuncha is an Igbo-American artist born and based in Chicago. She crafts sculptural portals which celebrate traditional techniques, methods, materials, and archives of the Igbo Diaspora.

agwuncha’s solo exhibitions include meditation on: woven fishing ports at Centrum in Port Townsend, WA (26′); chinelo house at Roman Susan Gallery (24′); soft structures with Chicago Artists Coalition (24′); and owoko with Comfort Station (22′). More recently, agwuncha has received the 3Arts Teaching Artist Award (25′), Jackman Goldwasser Residency at Hyde Park Art Center (26′), Penland Winter Residency Textiles Fellowship (25′), Ragdale Residency (26′), and Centrum Residency (26′). Her work has been represented in private collections nationally.

Photo Credit: Centrum

To Be Remembered: Woven Matters of the Heart
August 21, 2026 – February 28, 2027
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Rooms, 2nd Floor North

Curated by: Mya Lewis

Between the folds of this world, lingering pieces of one’s own gossamer, narrative threads lay waiting to be unearthed and held.

To Be Remembered: Woven Matters of the Heart embraces the reflective ways in which five contemporary textile artists illuminate their rich interior worlds through their unique fiber practices. The artists: ebere agwuncha, Nnaemeka Ekwelum, Hale Ekinci, Josué Esaú, and Thương Hoài Trần each visually intertwine time, memory, and emotion to conjure deeply felt histories across spatial geographies, venerating the cultural traces that connect us to the motherlands.

Embedded in their designs and motifs, the artworks’ layered meanings preserve cultural continuity through extensive research that awakens their ancestors’ legacies and gifts. The works create new pathways to becoming closer to one another, communicating how we become and become undone within the ever-changing cycles of life. Skillfully made by hand, the artists guide us in how we learn to weave our own personal mythologies.

The magic in life is apparent, and we invite you to find it within.

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Tags: Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, ebere agwuncha, meditation on: sculptural portals, To Be Remembered: Woven Matters of the Heart