10/04/2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused widespread, global turmoil. In addition to physical suffering, the pandemic has laid bare economic, racial and social disparities, and the increased polarization of our basic beliefs. The disruption of our daily lives has been far reaching, including our ability to gather and mourn for those who have succumbed to the disease. In public discourse, the loss of individual human life is often dwarfed by partisan positioning or impersonal statistics. As someone who has lost two family members to this virus, I believe it is imperative that we humanize its victims, and reconnect statistics with the actual lives lost.
I’ve begun an artistic project memorializing the individuals who were loved and lost. This is a non-commercial venture that underscores the commonalities of grief and our shared need to remember, and aims to put human specificity into the statistics. I am seeking submissions of 4” X 6” photographs of family or friends who died as a result of contracting Covid-19, for inclusion into an expansive artwork/archive created in their memory. Photos can be scans from old family album, a print from a shoe box, or something recently printed at the pharmacy. I encourage you to write on the back of the photos, to share thoughts, memories, biographical details, quotes or any other specific pertinent information to the individual. Submissions may be signed or anonymous.
To contribute to this project, please drop off or mail your entry to:
COVID Memorial Project
c/o ROY G BIV Gallery
435 W. Rich Street
Columbus, OH 43215
This is an organic, ongoing project with a rolling deadline, but I would love for people to send them in sooner rather than later so that their contributions may be included in upcoming exhibitions at ROY G BIV Gallery and The Shot Tower Gallery.
