I’m excited to introduce you to
Gabrielle Ione Hickmon and invite you into our conversation about art, research, home, history, and how Gabrielle blends them in her creative practices.
Gabrielle Ione Hickmon is a Black woman from a middle place—Ypsilanti, MI. A visual artist and History PhD student at the University of Michigan, Gabrielle's practice is concerned with African American and Indigenous histories, presents, and futures in the Great Lakes Region. As a breast cancer survivor, Gabrielle’s practice also engages illness, disability, and health toward an attempt at clarifying her experience to herself and exploring cancer's intersections with history and culture. She is concerned with breast cancer, its aftermaths, and its impacts—especially on Black women. Her writing has appeared in
Vox, Condé Nast Traveler, The Baffler, The Pudding, and Literary Hub. She has exhibited ceramic work domestically and internationally. Her ceramics are in the private collection of the North Carolina Historic Sites Division and the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation. Gabrielle has been an artist-in-residence at Pocoapoco, Mas Palou, Mudhouse, John Bauer Ceramics, the Visual Art Center of Richmond, and the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation. She lives, works, and studies in her hometown, Ypsilanti, MI.