Memorializing The Deaths Of More Than 500,000 Americans Lost To COVID-19

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🗓️ 19 February 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is on track to pass a number next week that once seemed unthinkable: Half a million people in this country dead from the coronavirus.

And while the pandemic isn't over yet, and the death toll keeps climbing, artists in every medium have already been thinking about how our country will pay tribute to those we lost.

Poets, muralists, and architects all have visions of what a COVID-19 memorial could be. Many of these ideas are about more than just honoring those we've lost to the pandemic. Artists are also thinking about the conditions in society that brought us here.

Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, has already written one poem honoring transit workers in New York who died of the disease. Smith says she wants to see a COVID-19 memorial that has a broader mission, that it needs to invite people in to bridge a divide.

Paul Farber runs Monument Lab, an organization that works with cities and states that want to build new monuments. He says he wants to see a COVID-19 monument that is collective experience and evolves over time. He also wants it to serve as a bridge to understanding.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Kim win of Denver, Colorado lost her brother Frank win to COVID-19 on November 23rd of last year. He was 40 years old.
0:09.0	Growing up, my brother and I were very close being that we're only four years apart. As children, we bickered, but he was always there for me.
0:19.0	Kim says the two of them shared a passion for music, especially the music they listened to as teenagers in the 90s.
0:25.0	A lot of it was electronic music, but in particular, the Pesh mode at that time, Ultra came out. And I think that was a very, very pivotal time in his life.
0:35.0	And it hit so many notes for him.
0:38.0	A couple of days after he had passed away, I remember just having a few moments to myself.
0:46.0	And I had my music streaming just on random songs and the Pesh mode's home came up.
0:54.0	The song has this big orchestra lined up to the chorus where it says, and I thank you for bringing me here.
1:04.0	For showing me home, for singing these tears. Finally, I found that I belong here.
1:20.0	That song helped me because it felt like a message. Him letting us know that things were going to be okay or at least he was okay.
1:38.0	And just trying to figure out where I go from here, where my family goes from here, and what we do to honor his life in legacy.
1:50.0	That was Kim Wynn talking about her brother, Frank, who died from COVID-19 a few days before Thanksgiving.
1:57.0	The US death toll from COVID-19 is on track to pass a number next week that once seemed unthinkable, half a million people in this country dead from the coronavirus.
2:08.0	Consider this. When this pandemic is over, how will our country pay tribute to those we lost?
2:15.0	Artists in every medium have been thinking about this as the death toll keeps climbing.
2:23.0	From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Friday, February 19th.
2:29.0	In recent mass shootings, people have been targeted for who they are, who they worship.
2:33.0	But on June 28th, 2018, people were targeted for the job they do at a newspaper.
2:39.0	Listen to the new series from NPR's embedded about the survivors at the Capitol Gazette.
2:44.0	It's considered this from NPR. Poets, muralists, and architects all have visions of what a COVID-19 memorial could be.
2:52.0	Many of these ideas are about more than just honoring those we've lost to the pandemic.
2:58.0	Artists are also thinking about the conditions in society that brought us here.
	...

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