*THIS IS ARCHIVAL THIS PROJECT IS NO LONGER NEEDING SUBMISSIONS*

A Bus Stop To Nowhere

The project A Bus Stop to Nowhere is a timely conceptual piece that connects the tragic loss of life during the COVID pandemic, those who are in need of mourning, the loss of life in need of celebration, and a staunch reminder of nearly half a million people who have died due to the United States government miserable attempts at mitigating this crisis. The Bus Stop to Nowhere is a constructed life-sized bus shelter and audio installation with recordings of letters written to people who have died from COVID, or due to circumstances of the tragedy. The (desired) inaugural location for this installation will be on the Southern Illinois University campus.

Submissions

For families that want to submit stories about their lost loved ones please send a voice memo that is addressed to your loved one in letter style, also please include your full name and email the memo to: cody.tracy@siu.edu — if you are uncomfortable about reading the letter yourself please just send the document and we will take care of the audio reading for you.

The motivation of this piece comes from a few ideas and events surrounding the need for public spaces of mourning. In a strange but predictive changing tide of views since the hyper-memorialistic events following 9/11, it seems that there hasn’t been much emphasis on un-commercialized artworks expressing the loss of life surrounding the pandemic, since the enemy is invisible, and punches holes through the fragility of patriotism we have not been given the space to mourn. This is why a phone booth in the Japanese town of Otsuchi that was devastated by a Tsunami in 2011 is a place we have been looking in the conceptualization of the bus shelter. The phone booth is a place where families come to grieve the loss of life in the tsunami by picking up the receiver and speaking directly to the dead. And is beautifully documented by NHK Sendai in Japan. Briefly, another inspiration for this piece comes out of a retirement home that was trying to stop their Alzheimer patients from leaving the campus, so they built a literal bus stop to nowhere. We encourage you to share your letters with us and share this idea with your friends so that we can create a space of mourning for the enormous amount of death faced over the past year. Thank you. — Cody Tracy & Andrew Beyke