Architectural Elegy: A Mourning Ritual for Lost Spaces

Architectural Elegy: A Mourning Ritual for Lost Spaces
A Visual Performance Art
Thursday July 23, 2026 from 6-7pm, doors open at 5:30pm
Register Here: $25 General admissions, $15 for seniors and students, free for Museum Members
 
In response to The Disappointed Tourist, Ellen Harvey’s on-going project of painting lost places, Dannielle Tegeder of Hilma’s Ghost will lead a meditative ceremony with Ellen Harvey honoring demolished and disappearing buildings through collective remembrance. Participants will create ephemeral memorials by drawing or writing about a place they miss and sharing brief stories of places that shaped their lives. Drawing inspiration from Harvey’s practice of preserving the overlooked, participants will honor our forgotten spaces through a knotting ritual creating a temporary community to support each other in our grief. The ritual closes with a moment of silence for the places and structures that once held our histories.
 
Duration: 60 minutes | All materials provided | Participants are invited to dress in mourning or black (not required) | All are welcome
 
Ellen Harvey’s The Disappointed Tourist, currently on view at MoCA/CT, is an ongoing project of painting lost places submitted by the public in response to the question: “Is there someplace that you would like to visit or revisit that no longer exists?” To date, Harvey has painted over 320 sites from over 40 countries, ranging from the locations of happy memories to traumatic sites of loss and destruction.
 
About Hilma’s Ghost
Hilma’s Ghost was founded by Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray in 2020 and for over five years, this initiative explored feminism, spirituality, and collective practice through exhibitions, curatorial projects, and community-based programming. The duo is known for Abstract Futures Tarot, presented at The Armory Show in 2021, as well as the acclaimed exhibitions Cosmic Geometries and Chromagick. Through workshops and online initiatives, they have built an international community of more than 6,000 participants. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and Artnet, and they have upcoming projects in Mexico City and New York through the MTA Percent for Art program. 
 
About Exhibition Artist, Ellen Harvey
Ellen Harvey is a British-born Brooklyn-based conceptual artist whose work ranges from guerrilla street interventions to immersive institutional installations and large-scale public artworks. She has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally, including the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Solo museum exhibitions include the Chicago Architecture Center, Turner Contemporary (UK), Museum der Moderne Salzburg (Austria), Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), The Bass (Miami Beach), Groeninge Museum (Bruges, Belgium), Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington DC), Pennsylvania Academy of Art (Philadelphia), Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art (Gdansk, Poland), Butler Gallery (Ireland), among others.