IN PHOTOS: Washington, D.C. exhibit honours COVID-19 deaths with 650K flags

A new exhibit is on display at Washington, D.C.’s National Mall to honour the close to 680,000 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19.

The exhibit, titled, “In America: Remember,” features 650,000 white flags laid upright over 20 acres and 43 sections, each to represent a death from the virus.

The monument is the second from artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, who did a similar project last year with 267,000 flags, representing the COVID-19 deaths in the country at the time.

“When numbers get so large, it becomes difficult to really understand them, so I, as a visual artist, wanted to make the number physical,” she said as she oversaw the project’s construction.

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“Taken holistically, this is a physical manifestation of empathy,” Firstenberg said during the opening ceremony of the art installation.

To date, 678,407 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, and currently an average of 2,000 die a day from the virus.

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The exhibit opened Friday and will close Oct. 3, 2021.

It also features around six kilometres of walking paths and white benches for visitors to sit and reflect.

Firstenberg herself has reflected on the immense grief the deaths have brought, to the point where it has overwhelmed her.

“I was just so intent on planting all these flags and making people understand, that once people began laying on top of my art their own grief and experiences, it became truly overwhelming,” Firstenberg said.

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“There were times when I quested to just be alone with my flags last fall when I first did this iteration of the art,” she continued, “because I just had to find a quiet space to deal with all the pain that my art was representing.”

The flags are meant to mimic the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, which hosts around 400,000 graves from those who have died from U.S. conflicts, beginning with the Civil War.

It took workers days to plant the flags by hand. See the exhibit yourself below: