I was walking through the Kensington neighborhood in North Philadelphia when I noticed a shrine made from scraps of lumber and old furniture. Empty liquor bottles were arranged inside. A menagerie of stuffed animals, their fur matted by rain and bleached by the Sun, covered the top. “RIP Bug” had been crudely written with black Sharpie across a koala’s chest.
As if in answer to my question – who is “Bug”? – I found a plaster heart nearby, obscured by the weeds. It was set in concrete along with spent votive candles. Inside the heart was a baby’s footprint, the words “In Memory of Bough,” and a photograph of a young man with a dimpled smile wearing a cap and sports jersey.
Over the next few weeks, I returned to the shrine, drawn back by questions about the intensely personal work of public mourning that it performed. How had it come to be on this unremarkable stretch of sidewalk? Who built it, lit the candles, emptied the bottles and placed the stuffed animals?
Over the past seven years, I have visited, revisited and documented dozens of memorials in the neighborhood. Some, like Bough’s, are like altars, while others consist of graffiti, handmade benches, even items of clothing such as T-shirts and trucker jackets.
These memorials are what cultural theorist Mieke Bal calls “acts of memory.” They serve as public expressions of private mourning in response to the traumas and tragedies of everyday urban life.
I was walking through the Kensington neighborhood in North Philadelphia when I noticed a shrine made from scraps of lumber and old furniture. Empty liquor bottles were arranged inside. A menagerie of stuffed animals, their fur matted by rain and bleached by the Sun, covered the top. “RIP Bug” had been crudely written with black Sharpie across a koala’s chest.
As if in answer to my question – who is “Bug”? – I found a plaster heart nearby, obscured by the weeds. It was set in concrete along with spent votive candles. Inside the heart was a baby’s footprint, the words “In Memory of Bough,” and a photograph of a young man with a dimpled smile wearing a cap and sports jersey.
Over the next few weeks, I returned to the shrine, drawn back by questions about the intensely personal work of public mourning that it performed. How had it come to be on this unremarkable stretch of sidewalk? Who built it, lit the candles, emptied the bottles and placed the stuffed animals?