Emiliano Cáceres Manzano Photos.
When you walk into the Ely Center’s exhibition space, you may be surprised to find a five-foot tall mannequin in a fluffy pink bunny costume staring back at you. One of the mannequin’s arms is raised, as if shielding itself, and its gaze is blank, at odds with the whimsy of its outfit. The walls of the room are covered in framed photographs and handwritten journal entries; there are even more in a large cabinet in the middle of the room.
These images range from collages to straightforward selfies, showing the artist, Anatar Gagné, looking alternatively defeated, angry, peaceful, and pained, filling the room with contradictory emotion. In all of these, she wears the pink bunny costume.
This room is “Widow Bunny,” an exhibition at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art (ECoCA) on Trumbull Street in New Haven. On view until August 10, the exhibition follows Gagné as she grieves her husband David (Dave), who died in a motorcycle accident on August 15, 2024. Through photography, collage, and journaling, Gagné creates an immersive and unapologetic look at her experience with grief.
“I want people to know it’s okay to grieve,” Gagné said in a phone call Wednesday.
The story of “Widow Bunny” begins far before Dave’s accident. For almost 20 years, without fail, Dave would wear a pink bunny costume for Halloween. He would even crash parties with it throughout the year, a fact that Gagné relayed fondly over the phone in an interview. With his sudden death, the costume evolved to encompass whole new meanings.
Dave had wanted a celebration of life rather than a funeral. In a tribute to his sense of play, Anatar suited up in a bunny costume to eulogize him.
The contradictory images and emotions of grief are central to “Widow Bunny.” Gagné gives the viewer a day-by-day view of the process of grieving, no surprise given that the exhibition began as an Instagram account. Posting as @viuda_girasol, Gagné embarked on a tribute to Dave. She would wear the bunny costume for 31 days, 31 days of Halloween in memory of her late husband’s favorite holiday.
Every day of that period, Gagné waited for inspiration to strike, then snapped a photograph. Some show her laying dejectedly or crying into her morning coffee, while others show her painting her nails or walking her dog. In one, Gagné’s silhouette, slumped on a tricycle in the middle of what looks like a living room, is cut away to reveal a highway at sunset.
The everyday locations and activities in the images portray grief as daily, omnipresent, and varied. Select daily captions, often addressed to Dave, provide an unfiltered look at the grieving process: “I am becoming an expert at crying in public.” “I don’t want to be here without you.” “The hardest part about grief is learning to accept so many conflicting emotions going on at once.”
A particularly striking image shows two Anatars, sitting on a low table, bodies angled out toward the viewer and holding hands. On the wall behind them, one can make out a Frida Kahlo self-portrait with two Fridas, paralleling the foreground of the image. In images like these, Gagné captures the loneliness of grief, while also tapping into a rich lineage of artists using their art to process their feelings.
At the core of “Widow Bunny” is Gagné’s determination to document each step of this process. After her husband’s passing, Gagné was struck by how little grief is discussed in American culture. Making art allowed her to open conversations.
“You should feel your feelings openly,” Gagné said in her interview.
Indeed, “Widow Bunny” has provided a physical space for conversations about grief. The cabinet in the middle of the exhibit holds photos of what Gagné calls “Bunny Army:” the people that supported her in the wake of her husband’s passing. On top of the cabinet, attendees can write messages to Gagné in a notebook with a hole cut out of it. Like much of the exhibition, the notebook makes working around emptiness into a means for connection.
“I love you.” “Still no words,” the notes read. There is a box of tissues nearby.
As much as the images track Gagné’s personal journey, the exhibition as a whole also documents the people around her. Take, for one, each photo’s frame. Some are spray-painted gold, some are wooden and scuffed. Gagné set out to upcycle these frames in an effort to make the exhibition feel more inviting and reflective of the people along her path. For example, her mother-in-law provided a handful of frames. Similarly, the last photo of the exhibition is displayed in a frame made by Gagné’s new boyfriend, marking the changes in her life in the year after Dave’s passing.
In her interview, Gagné insisted on discussing her grief not as finite, but as a journey. “You don’t ever get past it,” she said. “You move through it.” That narrative permeates “Widow Bunny,” which is intent on providing a physical space through which viewers can feel their emotions alongside Gagné.
Her grief is a continuous process; the “Widow Bunny” Instagram account is still active, and the exhibition allows viewers to be a part of engaging with the process of mourning. In doing so, “Widow Bunny” becomes a testament to engaging with her feelings publicly and unapologetically, opening up space for wider discussions about grief and art.