The Long Goodbye - BCA’S LATEST EXHIBIT EXPLORES GRIEF AND LOSS THROUGH ART

10/16/2025 04:20PM ● By JENNIFER GOSS DUBY

In this life, loss and grief are inevitable. But when it’s your loss, the immediacy and intensity of your grief can be overwhelming. The way we deal with grief varies across individuals and cultures, but one thing we have in common: a discomfort with talking about it.

Friends of the bereaved might wonder, What should I say? Will I make them sad? Will I say the wrong thing? Should I just mind my own business?

These are just some of the questions that stand in the way of a meaningful discussion that might be helpful to the bereaved. And these are the questions that inspired Burlington City Arts (BCA) Curator and Director of Exhibitions Heather Ferrell to put together Do We Say Goodbye? Grief, Loss, and Mourning, an exhibition running through Saturday,January 24, 2026, that wrestles with the universal experience of loss and its resultant grief.

Lydia Kern, Double Sorrow, Double Joy, 2023, mixed media.

Lydia Kern, Ghost Twin, 2023, mixed media.

TACKLING A TABOO TOPIC

The exhibition introduction explains, “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.”

It’s common in our culture in the US to want every experience to be a story with a beginning and middle, followed by a tidy end. Anyone who has experienced a significant loss—whether it’s the loss of a loved one through death or the loss of a relationship, a way of life, a place, or our changing bodies—knows that grief follows its own path, often endless and certainly not tidy. Even well-intentioned people don’t know what to say to that. There’s a subtle pressure to “find closure” and move on.

Jordan Douglas, Things of My Mother, Contact Grid #1, 2025, archival pigment print.

CONSIDERING GRIEF IN A NEW LIGHT

Do we say goodbye? This is the notion that the title of the exhibition confronts. Notice it’s not “How do we say goodbye?” but “Do we say goodbye?”

That is, does grief end or is it a process that changes as we change? Maybe it’s more apt to think of it as a flowing river that we travel along, transporting us through unfamiliar territory. Sometimes, the river is winding and gentle; sometimes, it’s rough and wild.

“The exhibition opens up a consideration of grief, loss, and mourning, and it’s meant to be beautiful, uplifting, and hopeful, as well as recognizing the loss that all of us will experience at some time or another,” Heather says.

Nirmal Raja, Material Remains II, 2021, mixed media.

POWERFUL, MOVING PIECES

Featured artists include Peter Bruun, Bethany Collins, Jordan Douglas, Mariam Ghani, Lydia Kern, John Killacky, Nirmal Raja, and Jamel Robinson, and work in photography, painting, video, and installation.

All the selected artists have experienced grief, and their works “interrogate themes of memory, empowerment, transition, and endurance.” The pieces are moving and powerful, with the ability to reach inside the viewer and connect with their own personal grief.

Peter Bruun, Sunday, 2019, charcoal and pastel pencil, ink, gouache.

COME REFLECT IN A SAFE SPACE

Being a community-based art space is a foundational aspect of BCA. BCA is not just a place to see great art, it offers us a safe space for reflection and introspection, where we can wrestle with themes or ideas relevant and the emotions they might bring up. “I think art can elevate,” Heather says.

In accordance with its community-based priorities, BCA offers Family Art Saturday every month, a free public art-making activity inspired by BCA Center exhibitions.

For Do We Say Goodbye?, BCA’s Art from the Heart Coordinator, Rebecca Schwarz, collaborated with Heather to design connected Family Art Saturday activities, as well as take-home memory and grief art activities, which are available in the gallery.

Art from the Heart is a BCA program that offers free art experiences to patients and caregivers at University of Vermont Medical Center and Children's Hospital.

Jamel Robinson, Are You Staying for Me?, 2023, acrylic paint on canvas. Jamel Robinson, A Fight by Any Other Name Wouldn't Be FREEDOM, 2025, mixed media BCA Center installation.

GET IN ON THE CONVERSATION

As part of the exhibition, BCA partnered with the Vermont Association of Psychoanalytic Studies to offer “Do We Say Goodbye? A Conversation,” led by Dr. Elizabeth Goldstein. The conversation is open to the public and takes place at BCA Center on October 23 at 6pm.

The program features community member Ernie Pomerleau and exhibition artists John Killacky and Lydia Kern as they explore “grief and its connection to creativity and mental well-being.” Members of the public are invited to attend and participate in the discussion.