Date Posted: Feb 2, 2025.
An interview with Dr. Ashwin Shankar on Forging Community Bonds and Pediatric Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Author: ritualsinthemaking
Grief, Art, and the Pandemic: My Months in Mexico
Date Posted: May 4, 2025
As I traveled through Mexico, I became deeply interested in how often I encountered themes of death and grief within Mexican art. I visited Frida Kahlo’s historic Casa Azul and discovered that in her still life paintings, she hinted at deeper themes of death and pain. I toured the Casa Estudio Luis Barragán and noted how the famed architect worked symbolic reminders of mortality into the building itself. Reminders of mortality presented themselves in every museum and artistic space I entered.
For Noni and countless others, the pandemic reshaped daily life
DATE POSTED: MARCH 9, 2025
Moving to an assisted living home in the midst of a global pandemic might seem like a
controversial choice, but for Ilona Lund (“Noni”) and her husband, the decision was simple. “The
isolation, and not knowing how the pandemic was going to end, played a large role in our
decision to move.”
Lecture Recap with Jay Winter: “Surviving the Holocaust: The Mir Yeshiva from Vilna to Shanghai and Beyond”
Date Posted: Jan 31, 2025.
On January 16th, the Rituals in the Making team invited Jay Winter to discuss his current research on the history of the Mir Yeshiva and their story of survival.
Book Recommendation: COVID Chronicles
Date Posted: Jan 2, 2025.
Recently, I picked up the graphic novel COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology by various comic artists, who all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown differently [as we all did]. Grief, anxiety, hope, community, anger, frustration, love, care, creativity, politics, and despair are all themes touched upon through art in this anthology in ways I have not even thought of.
Gift Baskets and Memory Making: Rami’s Heart COVID Memorial Holiday Bazaar
Date posted: December 23, 2024
RIM team members attended Rami’s Heart COVID Memorial holiday bazaar in November 2024.
Transience: Reading Freud Before and During the Pandemic
Date posted: December 14, 2024
Lear tells us that he read “On Transience” differently before and during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, he considered it merely a poignant meditation on ephemeral beauty, and the imagined losses of the impending war. After the pandemic, he read it as an allegory of Freud’s own process of mourning.
What We Were Reading and Writing: COVID Coverage in the Run-up to the 2024 Presidential Election
Date posted: November 17, 2024
In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, RIM paid close attention to how and when the pandemic got mentioned.
“People want perfect healthcare; not good, perfect”
Date Posted: NOV 11, 2024.
On October 8, 2024, Avery Nennmann and Hanaan Khabir interviewed Dr. Bill Morris on his experiences during the early months of the pandemic for the More than a Healthcare Hero Initiative.
A Present Absence
Date Posted: OCT 1, 2024
Three years after In America: Remember installation was dismantled, Suzanne and her team of volunteers returned to the Mall for two days (September 21 and 22, 2024) to write down their memories of the installation and record oral histories.