Free and open to the public. No pre-registration required. .

Over the past three years, COVID-19 has taken the lives of more than one million Americans. Nearly one-fifth of us knew someone among them. All of us have been impacted. In a culture that avoids talk of death and puts grief on a timeline, what does our mourning look like? How will we manage the voids the pandemic has created? 

Currently in production, Afterthought: Remembering a Pandemic is a documentary feature about COVID memorials and the people who build them. It centers on two projects: a community memorial in Detroit involving thousands of participants, and one artist’s personal memorial in New York commemorating the loss of a friend. In documenting these stories, Afterthought memorializes individuals lost and communities changed by the pandemic and asks universal questions about shared trauma, memory, and healing.   Join the filmmakers for a free screening of clips from the film-in-progress, followed by conversation.

Hosted by UMMA and co-sponsored by Arts Initiative, UMMA, American Culture, Latina/o Studies & the Museum Studies Program. 

The Arts & Resistance Theme Semester, organized by UMMA and the U-M Arts Initiative, is generously supported by the U-M Office of the Provost, the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, and Erica Gervais Pappendick and Ted Pappendick.