MOURNING FLOWERS (THE sleeves)
Mourning Flowers is an art project brings awareness to the ripple effects of trauma and fear that communities sustain after acts of violence. It uses the flowers and sleeves that wrap them left as offerings at spontaneous memorials to bridge the disconnect between violence and the human response to it.
Through the medium of reclaimed plastic flower sleeves, the work will explore loss, the role of impermanent expressions, and the impetus behind shared community recovery from the effects of mass violence. The forms created from the sleeves are elegiac and ghost-like, evoking the devastation of traumatized communities. The work is guided by the terrible fact that 40,000- 50,000 people die from gun violence every year in the United States. The ripple effect of trauma from one event moves from the inner circle of victim families, friends, and survivors to the community in which they occur, to the state, to the country, and to the world.
Both the flowers and sleeves are unique objects but also the same, much like how we all respond to trauma. You can feel both an individual response and a collective grieving. It’s something we all do together and yet the varying bouquets and sleeves represent individuality. This work will literally and visually join together individual experiences of the tragedy, incorporating a variety of perspectives, including those of the Deaf community who were so directly affected by this awful event. These pieces will unify our shared burden and help to illuminate the path of moving forward together.