COVID-19 MEMORIAL

Location: Lake Roland, Baltimore, MD
Client: Baltimore County
Graphics: Claudia Chalberg
Fabricator: Coldspring & Merkle Monuments

With no beginning or end, the circle is a non-hierarchical shape that is often used as a symbol for continuity, wholeness, the cycles of life, the earth, among others. By extension, it can represent community or family. The COVID-19 pandemic in many ways fractured these “circles” by taking lives, separating families, and causing barriers to be put in place both physically and psychologically, out of necessity and fear. The design not only acknowledges the pandemic’s toll (the bronze "crack" of the number of reported deaths due to COVID-19 in Baltimore County) but also proclaims life’s precious continuity by creating an inclusive space. Even though we have been separated, scarred, and many are no longer with us, we are still inextricably linked to one another as people, communities, countries. Healing is possible when we believe we are a part of a something, as opposed to feeling apart.