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March 4 - March 10, 2022
New ‘Queens COVID Remembrance Day’
exhibit set to open at Elmhurst Library
BY BILL PARRY
Two years after the coronavirus
pandemic swept through
the borough, Queens Public
Library announced the opening
of the “Queens COVID
Remembrance Day” exhibit at
Elmhurst Library, right in the
heart of what became known as
the “epicenter of the epicenter.”
The exhibit opens March 1
and consists of 270 portraits of
Queens residents who perished
during the pandemic.
The 12”-by-18” images suspended
inside a structural
glass reading room were created
by 17-year-old artist Hannah
Ernst who began drawing
portraits of COVID-19 victims
after the loss of her grandfather,
Calvin “Cal” Schoenfeld,
in May 2020. With the help of
her mother, Ernst created a
Facebook community named
Faces of COVID Victims, featuring
more than 2,500 portraits
drawn by her, capturing
the spirit of loved ones lost.
Ernst worked with COVID
19 victims’ families to accentuate
unique details of each
loved one: a favorite baseball
cap, glasses or a carefully shaded
salt-and-pepper beard.
“We have experienced time
passing in new ways during the
pandemic. This monthlong exhibit,
held two years after our
city was thrown into an emergency
response to COVID-19,
is an opportunity to hold both
space and time to acknowledge
all we have lived through and
those we have lost,” said Natalie
Milbrodt, QPL’s coordinator
of metadata services and the
founding director of Queens
Memory Project. “We are proud
to work with our community
partners to plan the exhibit and
are grateful to the team at Elmhurst
Workers installing Queens COVID Remembrance portraits at Elmhurst Library as part of an exhibit that opens to the public during
March. Photo courtesy of QPL
Library for hosting this
evocative memorial.”
The first “Queens COVID
Remembrance Day” was organized
by a committee of borough
residents who lost family
members and featured Ernst’s
portraits placed on empty
benches at the Forest Park
Bandshell on May 1. Many of
the portraits were later displayed
at St. John’s University
in August.
What began as one young
artist’s endeavor to capture the
essence of her grandfather inside
a framed portrait sparked
a viral movement that first
traveled online and now offline
in public spaces inaccessible
during the pandemic,” Queens
Memory Curator J. Faye Yuan
said. “Now hung across a library’s
reading room, this
community memorial is a testament
to the healing powers
of public art, art that empowers
us to witness grief as an artifact
of love. Together.”
Queens Memory invites
the public to contribute to this
community memorial. Customers
can use the below QR code
or visit queenslib.org/queensmemorial
to upload their photos
and the story of someone
they wish to memorialize. The
Queens Memory Project will
share these contributions on
queenslib.org/covid.
“The pandemic has left an
indelible mark on the lives of
so many families who lost a
loved one to COVID-19. We organized
the first ‘Queens COVID
Remembrance Day’ during
a time when those families
needed a space for healing, acknowledgment
and support,”
said EmyLou A.S. Rodriguez,
co-chair of the ‘Queens COVID
Remembrance Day’ Committee.
“We are grateful to Faces
of COVID Victims and Queens
Public Library for creating
this memorial space to continue
to honor the memory of
those we’ve lost, especially
now that the world tries to
move on to some semblance of
normalcy. For those of us who
suffered loss, our lives will
never be the same.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry
by e-mail at bparry@
schnepsmedia.com or by phone
at (718) 260–4538.
Vol. 10, No. 9 32 total pages
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