Harris honors 1 million COVID deaths through art

The Rev. Mark Harris has marked nearly every major death milestone during the two-year COVID pandemic through unique art projects. 

With the United States nearing 1 million deaths – 988,000 as of April 19 – Harris debuted his latest piece, “Remembering One Million,” in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church’s Parish Hall in Lewes. 

For this project, Harris spent two months stamping M on 20 pieces of rice paper. M, the Roman numeral for 1,000, was stamped 1,000 times – 50 times on each banner. The vertical banners hang loosely from the ceiling with eight red mylar banners mixed in, flowing with the movement of air inside the room. 

“When I was pressing the M, I would try to think, ‘This is 1,000 people,’” Harris said. “A lot of the time it was very meditative. I was spending some time, and in an odd way, naming the 1,000.”

Harris’ latest project will be on display in the parish hall through Monday, May 9. The public may view and reflect from 1 to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. Harris will move his work to the Route 9 Library & Innovation Center in New Castle, where it will be on display from Thursday, May 12 through Thursday, June 9.  

This effort continues an ongoing project of trying to envision and memorialize significant numbers in the COVID battle. Using printmaking techniques, Harris recorded the significance of deaths at 100,000 in May 2020, at the time of All Saints’ Day in 2020, at 500,000 in January 2021 and again at 600,000 in May 2021.

He started the project as a way to come to terms with the overwhelming numbers. To mark 500,000 deaths, he created a piece of art that featured 500,000 dots. The exercise illustrates just how immense a half-million of anything actually is. Reflecting that each dot represents a person – or in the case of his latest piece, where each M represents 1,000 people – Harris hopes his works help people understand how devastating the pandemic has been for the community, state and country. 

This exhibit was funded in part by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts.