MOURNING IS AN ACT OF LOVE

From altars in our homes to large marble structures in our city centers, memorials and monuments provide a physical space for us to gather and grieve. We mourn because we love. We create intimate and public spaces to remember that which we hold most dear. In this moment though, where connection is so confined to the virtual, we find ourselves struggling to mourn together. Simultaneously, the debates around memorials and monuments—which should stay, which should go, who we are remembering—have made them lightning rods for the deep fractures in our world. The films, photos, and participatory art in MOURNING IS AN ACT OF LOVE ask us to reconsider memorials making, and reimagine how we build public experiences that are rooted in our histories, acknowledge our grief, and use love to inspire us to work together for our collective future.

Please join us at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in SOMA, San Francisco starting on February 12th for this in-real-life complement to the ideas and issues we will engage with virtually throughout our festival. This installation takes place on the exterior walls, windows, and walkways of the YBCA building. The installation is free and open to the public, exclusively outdoors, and social-distancing-friendly. Please wear your mask.

Still from Primavera by Adrian Garcia Gomez. Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Curation by Susannah Smith