Photo-Documentation
From the Naming the Lost Memorial website
//Since May 2020, a small team of artists, activists, and folklorists has been curating COVID-19 memorial sites in New York City to name victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year, NTLM invites up to 30 partner organizations, representing NYC communities most impacted by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, to participate in the project through a series of workshops leading to the creation of annual, public memorials.
//Since May 2020, a small team of artists, activists, and folklorists has been curating COVID-19 memorial sites in New York City to name victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year, NTLM invites up to 30 partner organizations, representing NYC communities most impacted by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, to participate in the project through a series of workshops leading to the creation of annual, public memorials.
In May of 2020, activists in NYC planned a 24-hour, online vigil to read the names of those lost to COVID-19.
They called this vigil “Naming the Lost.” Alongside the online action, members of Naming the Lost created physical memorials in each of the five boroughs of New York City, installing them at Queens’ Corona Plaza, Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, Ridge Street & Broome Street on the Lower East Side, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, and Verrazano Nursing Home in Staten Island.
Following the vigil, Naming the Lost Memorials (NTLM) members continued creating public covid memorials each month. Our goal was to draw attention to the astounding number of people dying from COVID-19 and to give New Yorkers a place to honor their dead at a time when it was challenging to gather collectively for memorial services.
Now, the project has evolved into a community public art project that continues to hold space for collective grief. Each May at Green-Wood Cemetery and October at Mano a Mano’s Día de Muertos celebration, dozens of partner organizations collaborate with NTLM on a covid-19 memorial. When the memorial is complete, we hold a memorial activation ceremony to honor the living and the dead through dance, music, poetry, and ritual. Our goal now is to offer New Yorkers a space to mourn and organize together and to consider how covid-19 continues to impact us individually and collectively.//
