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, performance and drawing to video, textile and 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, they 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’s 2025 solo show Forecasts & Elegies in Arabi, LA responds to this work. Zibby has also been carving eulogic depictions of the biodiversity devastated by bluestone mining and the tanning industries in New York state. They have an upcoming solo show in Oakland, CA at Confloptus in January 2026.

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). Their work has been featured in exhibitions at World’s Fair Gallery (Providence, RI), Eli Marsh Gallery (Amherst, MA), Antenna Gallery (New Orleans, LA), Winslow House (Vallejo, CA), and Central Contemporary Art (Providence, RI). Zibby has been teaching studio art for 20 years, most recently at Amherst College, RISD and Wheaton College.