The Oxford dictionary defines vigil as “a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, especially to keep watch or pray.”
I have created a vigil site, within the redbud tree outside our house at 1324 Ashland Ave, Evanston, IL., responding to a call for works from Art-In-Place. I encourage everyone to check out this great initiative and visit other sites.
My materials: twine, solar lights, fishing line, and origami boats made with frosted drafting film.
Beginning August 15, 2022, I suspended an origami boat to this Vigil installation, one boat for each gun-related fatality in Cook County. At the end of a 30-day period, on September 15, I had created and hung 94 boats. Last year, the Cook County Medical Examiner repoarted 1200 gun-related fatalities. This is our county, these are our neighbors. Our tragedy.
I pledged to stay awake, checking the stats and adding to this installation for at least one month, perhaps more. I called on friends and neighbors to help me.
This project was inspired by the many traditions around the world which imagine death as a passage on a boat, and from this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”
