Mourning mantras

During the day, visitors are invited to fill the Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory with their own expressions of grief, while in the evening the space is taken over by 30 ‘professional mourners’, who perform a variety of laments from countries including Albania, Greece and Venezuela.

The exhibition examines the different rituals that people use to process loss and the line between authentic and staged displays of emotion.

‘The design was sonically motivated, focusing on the performative act of loss rather than its physical manifestation, which has historically been marked by multiple scales, from tombstones to the World Trade Center Memorial,’ says Shohei Shigematsu, partner at OMA.