Photograph of memorial lanterns at the Japanese memorial of the Hiroshima bombing, August 6th, 2014. Photo by Vanvelthem Cédric (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

STILL BRIGHT HERE: Date TBA

"Still Bright Here" is an adaptive site-specific sacred space made from a grove of memorial lanterns all created around the loss of people, places, or things. Community members will be invited to contribute words and/or images recalling a joyful moment they shared with someone or something they've lost. This process will include reflection around a specific site of mourning particular to the starting location, whether a geographic location such as the location of a shooting or a disappearing neighborhood, or a shared emotional experience such as losing loved ones to AIDS, cancer, or suicide.

These moments of joy will be turned into handmade paper lanterns and hung in a grove of portable, reconfigurable "trees." When darkness falls, electric candles will illuminate the lanterns, thereby transforming the luminous act of remembrance into a literal bringing of light into dark places. Once the trees are installed, passersby will be encouraged to enter the grove and explore an experience of interwoven grief and joy. On exiting, they'll be invited to contribute their own joyful memories to be hung in the next iteration of the grove.

"Still Bright Here" will work to combat the erasure and silence that so easily follow loss by allowing for a panoply of memories and experiences to be given immediate public voice, instead of the usual hierarchical, authoritative forms of memorial traditional to civic space. Its aesthetics and adaptability give communities a public, visible space to both share their pain and uplift each other through the celebration and sharing of experiences of joy; its transformation of memories into glowing lanterns is intended as both a literal and a symbolic method of expressing the importance of memorial and exploring the intersection of individual and community experience.

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