Naming the Lost Memorials 

invites your participation in a

 Labor of Mourning

September 7th-September 11th

A nationwide week of memorial-making to name, remember, and honor

 nearly  200, 000 essential Americans lost to Covid-19…

Join Us!    For more information and to sign up, visit our website:

 Additional info below this flyer:

Since May 2020, Naming the Lost Memorials, (a team of New York-based artist-activist-folklorist-citizens) has been creating memorial sites in New York City to honor and remember victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, as the pandemic continues to claim thousands of  lives each week,  we are issuing a nationwide call, asking people everywhere to set aside time in the week of September 7th Labor Day to September 11th to join us in a labor of mourning. The dead deserve our remembrance and the bereaved deserve our condolence.

Grassroots memorials can be made small or large from simple materials, things that are easily gathered from resources at hand, and then meaningfully assembled. They can be designed in many different ways. We provide design resources for you  in a Memorial Making Kit found at:

Honor people you know who have died or choose a name or names from resources we offer at our website www.namingthelost.com/memorials

During the week of September 7-11, create and place a simple memorial where you live or work or anywhere you choose: in your yard, on your stoop, inside your home or place of business, at a park or a place of worship, in the city, in the country, on a street corner, or at a crossroads. Do this by yourself, or together with family, friends, colleagues, co-workers, classmates, or caregivers, or your safe pod. Our hope is to see hundreds of public memorials emerge.

Make this a safe activity: wear a mask while working with others and practice social distance. Keep hands clean.

We hope you will post photos of your memorial to FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, or other during the week of September 7-11. We will provide hash-tags for your use.

When you sign up on our website to become part of A Labor of Mourning, you can also agree to send digital documentation of your memorial to our project archive at City Lore (citylore.org), a long established folk arts and culture organization in NYC. Send “Labor of Mourning” photos and videos for our permanent “Naming the Lost Memorials Archive” to:   jake@citylore.org

Posting and documentation is desired but not required. We sincerely hope that your experience of making a memorial will serve its most important purpose as an act of mourning and remembrance.

Our Naming the Lost Memorials team came together out of our concern that those lost to Covid-19 were being numbered, not named. Something of the great tragedy we are living through is not being officially recognized: thousands of people have died—essential people. But their deaths have been diminished or denied.  It didn’t have to be this way. We make memorials as sites of necessary mourning.

We also realize that the prohibition of traditional funerals due to possible contagion have left families and friends in our communities bereft of  customary practices. Our memorial-making creates local places of remembrance in this time of great need.

Join us in September. Our invitation is open to everyone. Share this call with others.