Brianna Lynn Hernández Baurichter is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator based in the Midwest. Brianna’s creativity is heavily influenced by her mixed heritage from Mexican and German parents, embodying the spirit of a hybrid, eager to form connections and build new realities. In the studio, Brianna creates installations through several mediums including large-scale charcoal drawings, video art, and performances, each incorporating a high level of physicality and movement to reveal knowledge held within the body. Brianna’s current body of work focuses on the experience of providing end-of-life care and subsequent grieving process which, in addition to formal artworks, offers workshops and takeaway resources for viewers to self-educate through the safety of the creative process.
As a curator, Brianna works with artists to make socially-charged topics publicly accessible in order to create opportunities for education and empathy. Her socially-engaged practice extends to collaborating with community health researchers to incorporate the arts into collection and dissemination of public health project data.
Anticipatory|Después (A|D)
video series, 2017-present
The U.S. tends to have difficulty confronting the realities of life as it relates to death and the process of dying, leaving many caregivers and the bereaved to feel isolated and shamed into silence in their grief and trauma. After becoming a caregiver and ultimately losing my mother to cancer, I have made an effort to break down this silence through my artwork and researched others sharing this desire across industries.
My ongoing body of work, Anticipatory|Después captures the complex layers of trauma, dying, and grief through a caregiver’s eyes. Each piece shares the physical and emotional affliction of the dying, the caregiver, and at times the two concurrently. Through A|D artworks, workshops, and resources, I offer communal opportunities for healing, and an honest, open dialogue around dying and grief.
Consequence
video, 2017
Consequence depicts the inner turmoil of caregiving for the terminally ill. The frustration and pain of the caregiver tasks, alongside anticipatory grief, are expressed in an imaginary space where they can be safely released.
Ahora
video, 2017
Ahora glimpses at the unpredictable nature of grief-inflicted anxiety and panic by partially reenacting the violent final moments of my mother’s life.
Criada
video, 2019
Criada portrays the invisible labor of those who give care by embodying a memory of the deceased as a form of honoring the sacrifices of the dead.
Mirage
video, 2019
Mirage reflects on the growing bond of my relationship with my mother as her health gradually declined.
Vigil
video, 2018
Vigil reenacts the final weeks of my mother’s life, holding vigil in her room, surrounded by condolence flowers, waiting for death to relieve her pain.
