Visualizing the COVID-19 Tragedy - 360 | National Geographic

As a visual artist, I couldn't let this happen. When words go unheard and numbers get too large, so they're easy to dismiss, art has to take the lead. And so I wanted to use art to make the number comprehensible. White is important; white is the color of innocence. And all of these people, if there's one thing they had in common, none of them wanted to die from this virus.

One of the things that's important with this art is that the public is participating in it. This is a place where people share their stories and share their grief because we've all lost something. People come and they personalize flags; they'll put names and nicknames of those who have died. They'll put birth and date, deaths; they'll put little messages.

When people are walking through here and they see names on the flags, it helps to personalize it. Every single flag marks the grief of the family, the neighbors, the co-workers, and then also the medical community that worked so hard to save that life. So, each flag in itself embodies an immense amount of grief, and that's what the names remind people.

And then they lift their gaze and they see so many flags as far as the eye can see, and that gives them a real understanding of the scope of this American tragedy. Every day around noon, I changed the billboard to reflect that current day's death toll in the United States. It's a sad ritual. That's the hardest part of my day is when I'd have to change those numbers.

We plant basically each day the death toll from the day prior. I've ordered 15,000 more flags, and then I had to place yet another order for another four thousand. I have to expand the site; I've narrowed the walkways to as narrow as they can be, and now we're having to plant on adjacent green spaces. This is just mid-November; we have two weeks yet to go.

What do I want people to take away? I want people to understand that we have to change. We, as Americans, can't let this happen. If this is what it means to be an American, it's time to rethink that.