More Than 600,000 White Flags On The National Mall Honor Lives Lost To COVID

Each of the flags, displayed across the 20 acres of grass, will hold a written personalized message from loved ones honoring their memory.

The art installation, titled In America: Remember, was created by Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, the Washington, D.C., social practice artist who first created an installation of white flags outside the District of Columbia’s RFK Stadium in October 2020.

“I wanted to focus on my message. I didn’t purposefully start out to do a large-scale installation. My outrage led me,” Firstenberg said in an interview with NPR.

The 62-year-old artist began to visualize the idea for the installations in March 2020 during the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that Americans should be willing to take the risk of the coronavirus to protect the U.S. economy.

“That really disturbed me. I just felt as though someone had to do something to make a statement that with all these people dying, we had to value each of these lives as well,” she said.

She uses art as a way to focus on social issues in the world

Having spent years as a hospice volunteer, as well as working on Capitol Hill and in pharmaceutical new-product development, Firstenberg says she originally did not start out as an artist.

However, after taking a series of art classes, she discovered that art was a way to focus on her message when it comes to addressing social issues.

“Once I realized there was an art within me, I took every class I could,” Firstenberg said. “I learned every material I could because I wanted to use a whole range of materials to see what I needed to say.”