Join us for a participatory ritual, inspired by Ellen Harvey’s The Disappointed Tourist, that honors the buildings and places that shaped us but no longer exist.
A Mourning Procession: The Buildings We Carry
Ellen Harvey and Dannielle Tegeder taking part in a prior Mourning Ritual. Photo courtesy of Ellen Harvey.
Inspired by Ellen Harvey’s “The Disappointed Tourist,” a current exhibition at the CAC, this participatory ritual honors the buildings and places that shaped us but no longer exist.
Between dusk and darkness, we gather to mourn what has been demolished, supplanted, and otherwise erased from our cities.
In Victorian mourning tradition, participants will walk in The Procession of Lost Spaces—a candlelit (LED) cortege with architectural mourning cards where we name aloud the theaters, stations, childhood homes, corner stores, sacred spaces, and other vanished local fabric that haunt our memories.
Through eulogy, petition-writing, and collective blessing, we acknowledge that when architecture falls, it takes pieces of us with it.
Facilitated by Danielle Tegeder, this experience invites participants to dress in mourning attire (black, purple, or grey) and bring the memory of one lost space. Because what was built can be destroyed, but what is remembered cannot be erased.
This activation will be held in relation to a special reception and talk with Ellen Harvey on The Disappointed Tourist, currently on view at the CAC.
About the facilitator
Dannielle Tegeder is a New York-based artist whose practice is grounded in painting but also extends to drawing, wall works, sculpture, installation, animation, music, artist books, conceptual strategies, and writing. Her work engages with the history of modern painting and architecture, drawing from the multi-disciplinary spirit of 20th century practices while seeking new experimental approaches.
Dannielle’s work explores the role that social and urban systems play in shaping contemporary life. Recently, her practice has centered around feminism, alternative pedagogies, and the spiritual. In 2020 she co-founded the two-person collective Hilma’s Ghost.
Artist Talk & Reception
Join us for a related program—a special reception and talk with Ellen Harvey, the British-born, Brooklyn-based conceptual artist behind The Disappointed Tourist, currently on view at the CAC.
