Diedrick Brackens creates woven tapestries that blend a cosmic array of allegories, historical narratives, and autobiographical memories into compelling forms. In The Shape of Survival, Brackens brings his work into intimate dialogue with the American South, drawing on the region’s history of quilting and influences from myriad historic artists, most notably Aaron Douglas. Brackens’ use of hand-dyed cotton acknowledges the weighty legacy of this material, honoring its past while transmuting it into lyrical, awe-inspiring artworks.

The Shape of Survival takes on additional resonance in the museum’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies within a structure that originally served as a Central of Georgia Railway depot where cotton and other commodities produced by enslaved Black labor were transported and stored. Yet the poetic and often ecstatic gestures of Brackens’ figures offer a sense of joy and revelry, expressing a powerful engagement with the richness of both African American cultural inheritance and queer identity. Together, these works propose conversations across the centuries on the power of art and its potential for transformation and growth.

Feb. 24 - July 7, 2025