Q&A: How does this artist explore South Sudanese grief through her craft?

February 20, 2026
Candid of Awar Biong embroidering

Growing up, Awar Biong says she was surrounded by women embroidering and now turns to the craft herself in grief for what she has lost. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

When she’s not creating new pathways for University of Virginia students to train abroad, Awar Biong is writing poetry and creating embroidery at the New City Arts Initiative in downtown Charlottesville, where she is the fall artist-in-residence.

Alongside her full-time role as a coordinator for global health training at Â鶹Æƽâ°æ Center for Global Health Equity, her research residency includes organizing a series of events that examine past and present conflicts in the Sudans and hosting a mending circle for refugee women in Charlottesville.

She spoke to UVA Today about her work, inspiration and homeland.

Q. What brought you to Charlottesville?

A. I came to UVA in 2017 as a transfer student and started working here shortly after I graduated with my bachelor’s in biology in 2019. I worked as a medical scribe at UVA Health Midlife Health and Gynecologic Specialties Northridge. I then started working for Â鶹Æƽâ°æ Center for Global Health Equity in 2023, before taking a break to pursue a master’s in global health delivery from the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda.

Portrait of Awar Biong

Nine years into living in Charlottesville, Biong is excited to find ways to connect with the city beyond her UVA work. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

When I graduated in 2024, I came back and continued to work here at the center, where I started my new job as the new coordinator for clinical training last year. I work with Dr. Amita Sudhir to coordinate global health education opportunities for medical students and trainees across different partner sites. 

Q. What are you working on during your artist residency?

A. The larger component of my work is my writing. I’m drafting a manuscript, which is a compilation of essays and poems related to the grief that I experience as a Sudani American – grief that’s related to the loss of my maternal grandfather, as well as the mourning of my homeland. Grief that’s associated with displacement, which is this really odd thing that’s always been really hard for me to define. This residency has given me an opportunity to explore it while engaging more with people in my family and community.

I’m also embroidering a milaya (Arabic for bedsheet) for my grandfather’s grave. He is buried in Abyei (disputed territory on the Sudan-South Sudan border). With the instability in South Sudan and the genocide in Sudan, I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit his grave.

Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.
Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.

I never thought embroidery would be my artistry. I always grew up around it. The ladies would come by the house, gossip and work on their textiles. My mom showed me how to do it, but I never thought I would be an embroiderer. It’s been nice to work with other artists who work in textiles.

Q. How did the project start?

A. The writing portion of this project began in 2019, shortly after my grandfather passed. He was one of my first friends. We called him Baba Musa, and he was just larger than life in my mind, 6-foot-5, deep voice, tall, heart of gold, a military man in Sudan. He also was a Southerner who was raising his kids in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.

My family is Dinka from Abyei. I was born in Khartoum and we lived in Cairo before immigrating to the States. Having family participate in the Second Sudanese Civil War, the revolutionary spirit of the Sudanese people was always something that was imparted upon me, even when we left Sudan. There was always this pride of being Sudanese and being from the south, being from Abyei, being Dinka.

Close up of Awar Biong’s hands while embroidering

In addition to her work, Biong plans to host a series of events about the Sudans. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

He (my grandfather) came to me in a dream a year after he died, and I started writing a lot about him, thinking a lot about him and just hoping that he would visit me again. But then I realized through my grief that it’s not just about him. It’s about the bitterness that I feel about home. The pride that I feel about back home. The longing and the understanding that so much of what I miss is what I’ve never experienced, and that I’m just living in other people’s memories.

Q. Who is your artistic inspiration?

A. Growing up, my mom would write on everything in Arabic. She would just write on anything like mail, the inside of a book, some random receipt. Writing these poems. I couldn’t read them because my Arabic literacy needs work. She would just have her poems scattered about the house, and every now and then she would recite one and explain it to me.

This residency has been such a gift, because I’m building this confidence in my art. Sometimes it’s still intimidating to sit in the studio because it can feel like you’re only an artist when other people recognize your work. But so much of this residency is about the process. It’s wonderful to have the support of a gallery and a community of other artists.

Media Contacts

Zeina Mohammed

University News Associate University Communications

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