Naomi Bragin has received two City of Seattle awards for Grief Rituals project

Naomi Bragin has received two City of Seattle awards for Grief Rituals, a new project which will bring a series of arts practice workshops and community ceremonies to the Chinatown International District in 2026. Grief Rituals addresses the theme of migration through collective experiences of grieving and healing. The project has won support from Seattle’s 4Culture and the Office of Arts & Culture special initiative We Still Dream a Future. Grief Rituals grows out of Naomi’s work since 2018 as founding artistic director of Little Brown Language, a trans-disciplinary performance collaborative of leading local artists and organizers.

Milvia Pacheco, executive director of Movimiento AfroLatino Seattle, will work with Naomi as co-artistic director of the project. Community collaborators include Derek Dizon, steward of A Resting Place grief and loss cultural resource center, and Nia-Amina Minor, co-founder of Black Collectivity. Serving as project research assistant is Mariyah Hicks, a second-year student in Media & Communications at IAS.

Photograph of two women standing outdoors under a canopy tent. Behind them are hung tapestries featuring colorful art images.
Milvia and Naomi, co-artistic directors of Grief Rituals

To launch the project, Little Brown Language will host a pop-up station for visitors to share their migration stories in a welcoming environment that offers social connection and conversation. Their stories will inform the artists’ creation of a dance-activation, offered to the community as a free public event next spring. The artists will ask participants to write open-ended reflections on paper provided, which they can choose to share anonymously, addressing their lived experience or the experience of a family member:

  • What did you/they carry with you?
  • What did you/they leave behind?
A person wearing a white UW Bothell sweatshirt standing in front of colorful hanging tapestries.
Mariyah Hicks, project research assistant

On Thursday, October 2, 2025, the station will be hosted by ARTS at King Street Station gallery from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Visit the School of IAS event calendar for more details and follow @littlebrownlanguage on Instagram for project updates and news.

This project is supported by 4Culture and the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.

Photograph of asphalt road with chalk drawings. A canopy tent is overhead and colorful hanging tapestries are hung along backside of tent. A woman is crouched near bottom of tapestry.
Milvia installs her paintings for the Migration Story Station at Wa Na Wari Walk The Block Festival