Passing is a sculpture work made from thousands of white cloth flowers woven into wire mesh. The piece was installed at the Swamp Ward Window project (see projects page) in the winter of 2010.. For this outdoor installation in Kingston City Park for the HIV/AIDS walk, the piece has been reconfigured.
Passing was inspired by a visit to Il Cimitero di San Michele during a trip to Venice in the summer of 2009. Il Cimitero is the city’s cemetery and was established on San Michele under Napoleon. It contains the graves of thousands of ordinary Venetians as well as several celebrated individuals.
In this iteration, Passing speaks to sadness and loss but is also a reminder of the healing effect of commemorating lives lost. The installation in a playground is particularly poignant as it triggers a connection to others particularly the millions of children in many countries who have died from AIDS as well as those whose lives have been dramatically altered by the loss of parents and grandparents to the disease. While Passing was inspired by a specific place, I believe that there is a universality in the gesture of placing flowers to commemorate a life that isn’t limited by geography.