"IN AMERICA How Could This Happen...," flag

Object Details

Description (Brief)

White flag with metal pole and writing in black marker. neon pink tag attached to metal pole (C5-9)

Obverse Text: Antioco Martinez-Ruiz / 10/15/1958 - 4/3/2020

As COVID-19 deaths spiked in 2020, Suzanne Firstenberg’s public art installation "In America: How could this happen…" memorialized the number of people in the United States who lost their lives to the Corona virus pandemic as of November of 2020. The work (taking up 4 acres of the Washington, DC Armory grounds) represented the magnitude of the loss and also humanized the individual experience. At the time, more than 250,000 people were represented through individual white flags, that together provided a visualization of the pandemic sweeping across the country.

Location

Currently not on view

2020

ID Number

2021.0014.06

accession number

2021.0014

catalog number

2021.0014.06

Object Name

commemorative flag

flag

Physical Description

plastic; tyvek; metal (overall material)

Measurements

overall: 38 cm x 12.5 cm; 14 31/32 in x 4 29/32 in

See more items in

Work and Industry: General History

National Museum of American History

Record ID

nmah_2001483

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng4bdd3a399-9a37-0597-e053-15f76fa0cbca