REFLECTIONS: Processing the Pandemic An Interactive Public Art & Storytelling Installation Memorializing COVID’s 5th Anniversary

REFLECTIONS: Processing the Pandemic

An Interactive Public Art & Storytelling Installation
Memorializing COVID’s 5th Anniversary

Amplifying stories of everyday New Yorkers that may otherwise go untold

Directed by Lead Artist Trina DasGupta Pillay
Co-created by Trina and Jessica Pilot

March 29, 2025 – April 27, 2025 @ City Lore Gallery
Opening Reception, March 29th, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
New York, New York – City Lore, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, continues its commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the Covid pandemic’s impact on New York with the presentation of REFLECTIONS: Processing the Pandemic, an interactive public art and story-telling installation created and directed by writer, producer and director Trina DasGupta Pillay with frequent collaborator creative leader and producer Jessica Pilot. The project is a partnership with The Self Portrait Project (SPP) and Sky Schools and opens on March 29 and continues through April 27th at the City Lore Gallery located at 56 East First Street in Manhattan. Gallery hours are: Saturday and Sunday noon – 6:00 (and by appointment, 212-529-1955, ext. 22). For more information visit: https://citylore.org/about-the-gallery/current-exhibition/
There is an Opening Reception on March 29th at 7:00 PM.
Since May 2020, soon after the pandemic struck, City Lore has sponsored Naming the Lost Memorials, (NTLM) comprised of a small team of volunteer artists, activists, and folklorists, curated memorial sites in New York City to name and remember victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2025 Memorial Exhibit at Green-Wood Cemetery will take place on May 8th – June 8th, with the activation ceremony at 6:30 PM on May 8th. www.ntlm.org
ABOUT REFLECTIONS: Processing the Pandemic: For the past year, REFLECTIONS invited New Yorkers from diverse backgrounds to speak to a two-way mirror, answering questions about their pandemic experiences while in conversation with their own reflection. These heartfelt, vulnerable, beautiful stories are shared in a series of video testimonials and self-portraits on view at the City Lore Gallery. As one of the participants commented, “The world changed, but so did we.”
Visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to create their own self-portrait using SPP’s two-way mirror installation and reflect upon their own pandemic experience with SKY School’s thoughtful curriculum guide, contributing to an evolving dialogue about the ongoing effects of the pandemic.
Lead Artist Trina DasGupta Pillay said, “While much was documented during the peak of the pandemic, little space has been given to process its emotional impacts afterwards. REFLECTIONS aims to create that space, while amplifying stories of everyday New Yorkers that may otherwise go untold.”
REFLECTIONS is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
ABOUT THE REFLECTIONS CREATIVE TEAM
Trina DasGupta Pillay is a Cannes Lions, Webby Award and NAB Innovation Prize-winning producer, writer, director, who has specific expertise in social impact campaigns and behavior-change communications. She has worked with partners ranging from PBS, Little Island, Apollo Theater, Pivotal Ventures, Viacom (now Paramount Global), Teen Vogue, and Girls Who Code among many others. Trina’s career has spanned the television, political and technology industries, including producing original content in 12 languages across television, radio, live events, print and digital; leading a global program to close the technology gender gap with then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and creating the world’s first mobile social network dedicated to HIV prevention. Trina is a frequent public speaker, including at prestigious institutions such as the United Nations, SXSW, the Paley Center for Media and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jessica Pilot is a creative leader and producer with an extensive background developing and cultivating authentic talent partnerships within the media, entertainment, and non-profit spaces. She runs a boutique creative agency, Pilot Bookings. Credits and clients include: Meals on Wheels America, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where she spearheaded the comedy segments for five years, Producer with Film45 and Rick Rubin, EP at FX/Hulu and Talent Producer for the podcast arm of LA’s #1 NPR station. Pilot co-founded Hi Anxiety, a social impact campaign to help teens with anxiety, in partnership with Melinda Gates investment and incubation company, Pivotal Ventures. The campaign launched with Teen Vogue in 2019. Pilot was instrumental with the launch of NowThis, Vocativ and ScaryMommy.
The Self Portrait Project – Created as a participatory art concept in Brooklyn in 2009, the Self-Portrait Project (SPP) is a system and method for self-representation using a camera, two-way mirror, and remote control. The camera shoots through the transparent side of a two-way mirror, with the participant located on the reflective side. Using a remote control, the participant chooses how and when to capture themself. In the simple act of letting the model be the photographer, the dynamic of the photo changes – as does the energy – and therefore the final image. Giving someone who is accustomed to having their picture “taken” the opportunity to document their own likeness on their own terms produces images which address issues of vanity and insecurity, empowerment and self-esteem, superficiality and substance. As the photographer and model, one is wholly responsible for the images they create of themselves.
SKY Schools is an empirically-validated and evidence-based social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum, designed to improve student well-being and social emotional intelligence. Over the last 20 years, SKY has worked with over 250 schools across 28 states to find supportive solutions for their school communities. The curriculum includes breathwork, neural restorative practices (such as yoga & meditation), leadership training, service learning, social connection, emotional regulation, positive psychology, and conflict management. SKY’s approach integrates transformative restorative practices with a powerful, experiential and fun SEL curriculum, creating a highly effective tool for empowering youth, supporting student success, reducing conflict and apathy, and nurturing a positive school climate.
About City Lore & Memorializing – In the earliest days of the pandemic, City Lore launched Touching Hearts Not Hands a call for creative responses to the developing situation. From the moment the call went out, this project took as its goal to document and preserve the folk culture that has developed in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, collecting hundreds of songs, poems, videos, images of signs from shop windows and other material. Both projects echo the major cultural initiative that City Lore organized around the September 11th memorials that cropped up around the city. That work culminated in an exhibit curated for the New-York Historical Society in 2002 for which the physical memorials in the exhibit were acquired by the New-York Historical, and have become a major archival resource for researchers, writers and others studying that period. citylore.org/archives
About City Lore – Founded in 1985, and now an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, City Lore’s mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs. We document, present, and advocate for New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. We work in four cultural domains: urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. For more info: http://www.citylore.org.
City Lore is made possible with support from: Foundations: The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, La Vida Feliz Foundation, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, and The Sherman Foundation Public: The Institute of Museum and Library Services, The New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and generous individual donors. # # # #