“As artists, we are often asked to make visible that which is indescribable, ephemeral, or unknowable. In the case of the monumental loss of life due to Covid-19, how are we to make sense of all that we are losing in the midst of continued loss? How do we not only make that absence present but make that absence as heavy and complex and confusing as it feels? We’ve seen the numbers, but each number was a life: Somerville residents who moved through these spaces, who worked and played here, who called these places home. How do we mourn for people we have never met, for the pieces of our many communities that are now missing? A chair is a space meant for a body, a place where a body once was, but it is also an invitation to rest, to stay. May the souls lost to this virus be at rest, and may we continue to stay with their memory, to honor them, as well as honor each other by working together to keep each other safe.”

Photographs in collaboration with Greer Muldowney