Destroy This Memory

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On the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Destroy This Memory presents an installation-based, immersive environment that investigates memorial-making in modern contexts. Destroy This Memory offers 7 epic sculptures articulating the diverse aftermath  affecting the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas from 2005 to present day— electrical dangers, drowning, water damage, erosion of architecture, broken levees, FEMA, etc. This investigation invites us to explore how we create and build an archive of memory that is not just limited to the loss of life, but also visually expresses the structural, architectural, social, and cultural damages that are grieved by our whole community.

About This Project

In an era inundated with news of tragedy, we can often struggle to engage meaningfully with our present scale of loss. Inspired by Richard Misrach’s photo-series of the same name, Destroy This Memory offers a memorial-based, world-building experience in the Fall of 2025. Each installation begins with a lesser-known or deliberately hidden narrative from Hurricane Katrina. Through sculpture, ritual, public gatherings, and interviews, these stories are transformed into an embodied monument. Each memorial incorporates a contextualized tribute to every life remembered with 1,833 individually hand-cut crosses. Born of the desire for a more engaged and visceral reckoning of grief, this project provides an opportunity to be tactilely engaged in the experience of memorials and abandons the traditional simplicity and sanitation of monuments in this country. 

Structured like a museum, Destroy This Memory guides visitors through reimagined memorial forms (a fountain, a reflecting pool, a statue, a wall) blended with archival photos, architectural aesthetics, and personal testimony. Throughout this process, we are invited to reimagine how we approach the creation of memory together—not as passive archivists, but as active participants in expressing history. 

While rooted in the specific events of Hurricane Katrina, the project speaks to how disasters are recorded, whose stories are preserved and how they are told, especially when governing institutions dictate the narrative. I have felt personally called to explore this work hoping to uncover how intimate we can become with this particular thousand. Destroy This Memory asks us to make personal the tragedies of the past, and invites us to reflect on grief as a global experience. 

Your contributions would help support this immersive experience that acts not only as my first public presentation of visual arts work, but ultimately culminates as a celebration of our ability to come together and hold the things that may be difficult. Your support will help bring this vision to life by establishing a dedicated viewing space and supporting the work of several Chicago-based visual and performance artists. With your help, we can create a shared experience of remembrance, one that honors loss not with detachment, but with care, honesty, and presence.

 

Thank yous

Contribute any amount or choose from the levels below.

• $20
  Personal “thank you” note featuring Destroy this Memory progress photograph by Aaron Rolle ($5.00 is tax deductible.)
• $35
  Special edition illustration by Sydney Lynne ($10.00 is tax deductible.)
• $50
  Personal “thank you” note featuring Destroy this Memory progress photograph by Aaron Rolle + Special edition illustration by Sydney Lynne ($15.00 is tax deductible.)
• $100
  A custom, collaborative painting by Sydney Lynne ($50.00 is tax deductible.)
• $250
  Exclusive studio visit with Sydney during the production of Destroy this Memory ($100.00 is tax deductible.)
• $500
  Studio visit with Sydney Lynne and an opportunity to take home a live-created piece ($300.00 is tax deductible.)
• $1000
  Selection of one work from the Destroy this Memory collection ($500.00 is tax deductible.)

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Sydney Lynne

HMS Fund Awardee

Sydney Lynne Thomas is a Chicago-based designer from Dallas, Texas who has been a practicing visual artist for 10 years. Her breadth of work includes scenic design, workshops, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, community organizing, and building. Beginning with a background …

View Sydney Lynne's profile

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• Thank you to the following for contributing to 3Arts with the recommendation that we support this project.

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