Zibby Jahns

Zibby Jahns is a multimedia social-practice artist whose artwork revolves around reconsidering public space to reckon with loss. Their work spans disciplines, ranging from sculpture to performance, drawing to video, textile to text. Zibby’s artistic practice often extends into research and action beyond traditionally creative endeavors, recently relating to the overdose crisis and ecological devastation. In 2021, Zibby was awarded a Maharam Fellowship to research destigmatized ways of visually depicting people who use drugs. The same year, Zibby erected a steel public grieving sculpture/site on the campus of Wheaton College responding to the overdose epidemic and facilitated design studios with the Center for Complexity to design Rhode Island’s first Harm Reduction Center. In their current work responding to ecological devastation in the wake of colonial extraction culture, Zibby worked in the field with botanist Peri Lee Pipkin in 2023 on a botanical survey of rare Nevada wildflowers that will likely be destroyed by the creation of a lithium mine. Zibby has also been carving eulogic depictions of the biodiversity devastated by bluestone mining and the tanning industries in New York state. 
 

Zibby has performed around the world for over two decades, including  at the Contemporary Art Center (New Orleans, LA), the Tank (New York, NY), the Dream Community (Taipei, Taiwan), New Orleans Public Library (New Orleans, LA), Theater for the New City (New York, NY), the Music Box Village (New Orleans, LA), Hell & Gone (Brooklyn, NY), Parse Gallery (New Orleans, LA) and Scott Edwards Gallery (New Orleans, LA). Zibby’s work has been featured in exhibitions including World’s Fair Gallery (Providence, RI), Eli Marsh Gallery (Amherst, MA), Antenna Gallery (New Orleans, LA); Winslow House (Vallejo, CA), Central Contemporary Art (Providence, RI), and their upcoming solo show will be opening spring 2025 at Nikki Gallery in Arabi, LA. Zibby has been teaching studio art for 20 years, most recently at Amherst College, RISD and Wheaton College. Zibby holds a BA in American Studies from Smith College and an MFA in Sculpture from RISD. Zibby currently resides in Kingston, NY.