To Be Remembered: Woven Matters of the Heart

Event Date: August 21, 2026 - February 28, 2027

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.  

Thương Hoài Trần

Thương Hoài Trần is a Vietnamese American immigrant whose background informs their interdisciplinary art practice. Using family photographs to pay homage to their ancestral history and reconciling the gaps and barriers experienced by those in diasporic communities, including displacement, loss of language, and generational disconnect.    

Hoài Trần earned a BFA from Emporia State University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They have been a recipient of the DCASE Individual Artists Program (IAP) and a Residency at MASS MoCA. Their work has been showcased at the Plains Art Museum, Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Center for Craft, and Janet Turner Print Museum, among others.

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