Date May 9, 2025
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‘Presence of Absence’ explores death and connection with unexpected joy

Graduating senior Elysee Barakett reflects on the loss of her brother through a community-created mural on display in Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center through May 16.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The death of a loved one presents a dichotomy: they are physically gone yet still very much present in memories, in the shape of other relationships and in the artifacts they have left behind.

It is this paradox that underlies Brown University senior Elysee Barakett’s new exhibition, “Presence of Absence,” a mural on view at the Lindemann Performing Arts Center promenade through May 16.

The project began as a prompt in Brown’s Multimedia Storytelling course last fall, taught by Senior Lecturer in English Michael Stewart, who challenged his students to use images to form a narrative. Barakett immediately thought of a way to depict her brother Lincoln, who was just shy of his third birthday when he died from Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (unexplained death in children older than 1 year) in 2020.

Barakett, almost 14 years his elder, says she and her little brother were close from the beginning. She recalls playing music for Lincoln and watching him bob up and down to the beat.

“Being so much older than him, I took on a parental role,” said Barakett, who will earn a bachelor’s degree in international and public affairs later this month. “I remember seeing him dance for the first time, hanging out with him, picking flowers. He was a very sweet kid.”

After creating stamps for the initial class assignment, Barakett continued to explore themes of loss and grief through an independent study with Stewart during the spring semester. 

“There was something captivating about it,” Stewart said of the initial idea. “What would it be like to let others engage in this? There were a lot of exciting possibilities there, and so I encouraged her to pursue it.”

The project grew to incorporate more of Barakett’s story and culminated in a mid-April community art workshop to develop the mural for the exhibition.

Arts and crafts have always been part of Barakett’s life. When she’s at home in Greenwich, Connecticut, she and her two sisters often trek to Michael’s for supplies and then spend hours creating artwork together. At Brown, dorm room crafts have also been a way for her to enjoy time with friends.

“Art has been a really helpful tool in processing and exploring and coming together in community,” Barakett said.

And “Presence of Absence” is a communal project, meant to encompass those experiencing loss in any sense.           

Barakett created stamps that were inspired not only by the loss of her brother Lincoln — nicknamed Link — but also by the birth of her brother Bond three years ago. She said her father and stepmother chose their youngest child’s name to represent the connection between their two sons — Link and Bond.

“There are these two brothers who will never be able to meet each other,” Barakett said. “I wanted to make something in response to that.” 

black and white muralThe stamps she designed for the project feature negative and positive versions of simple figures: in one, the figure is cut out; in the other, the background is removed. 

“I played with the idea of having one form be physically absent and the other being present,” she explained.

Barakett secured a grant for a workshop and exhibition through the Brown Arts Institute with help from BAI fellow Christina Young, who is a master’s degree student in public humanities. 

Using the stamps she’d created and with a brief how-to lesson, Barakett held a walk-in workshop in April during which anyone from the community was invited to stop by and stamp on a 55-foot scroll of paper.

Some people stayed for a few minutes, others for hours. Barakett observed that for many students, contributing to the mural was a fun and therapeutic pause in their day. Others, she said, connected deeply with her expressions of grief.

I had some conversations with people in the process of creating it about my brother and my experience with loss. Some people opened up to me about experiencing loss at a young age.

Elysee Barakett Class of 2025
 
Elysee Barakett

“I had some conversations with people in the process of creating it about my brother and my experience with loss,” Barakett said. “Some people opened up to me about experiencing loss at a young age.”

By the end of the workshop, she found that many people had created joyful images including a sun, a boat and a fantastical creature.

“Those playful forms just came up on their own; it was really nice to see it grow,” Barakett said. “I was a little surprised at how playful it was in the end.”

Stewart was also moved by the outcome.

“It ended up becoming more than either of us could have consciously hoped for,” he said.

Barakett installed the mural in The Lindemann in late April and has since shown it to her father, who plans to frame a portion of it for their home, she said.

Going forward, the soon-to-be graduate is considering her career options with an eye toward a career in journalism.

“This project is very similar to journalism,” Barakett reflected. “It has a greater purpose and it brought together community. I will hopefully be staying true to those aspects in my career.”