Blood of the Earth is an immersive solo exhibition by Abigail Lucien debuting at the Art Institute of Chicago in June 2026, curated by Irene Sunwoo. The exhibition takes the cosmic origins of iron as its point of departure. A mineral born from the explosion of stars, iron forms our planet’s molten core and is also essential to life. This duality of iron—both a terrestrial and celestial material—establishes its capacity to trace time and tradition. Traversing metalworking lineages through African craft and Caribbean architecture, this exhibition offers a material through line for exploring diasporic experiences and collective memory. As an extension of the exhibition, Lucien is collaborating with the New York-based publication and design house Small Editions to produce an experiential exhibition catalog. This publication serves not only to archive the research of this project but also to extend it by exploring the book as a form in itself.

Abigail Lucien is a Haitian-American interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, writing, and time-based media. Implicating our relationship to material and place through an architectural vernacular, Lucien uses formal poetics to ponder concepts such as loss, love, and grief as fluid processions rather than states to reach or become. Lucien’s work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Artforum, Frieze Magazine, and Art in America. Recent solo exhibitions include the Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Center for the Arts (Vermont), and Nicola Vassell Gallery (New York). National and international exhibitions include Palais de Tokyo (Paris), MoMA PS1 (New York), SculptureCenter (New York), MAC Panamá (Panamá City), Tiwani Contemporary (London), and the Institute for Contemporary Art (Richmond, Virginia). Awarded fellowships and residencies include Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Amant Studio & Research Residency, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, The Luminary, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, ACRE, and Ox-Bow School of Art & Artist Residency. Lucien is based in New York where they are an assistant professor and area head of sculpture at Hunter College.