“Memorial artworks are notoriously difficult to pull off. Yet Candy Chang and James A. Reeves … hit just the right tone with ‘After the End'” — The New York Times

Describe your loss. This simple prompt was asked of each visitor to After the End, a site-specific installation in Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel. Influenced in equal parts by religious ceremonies and science fiction, artists Candy Chang and James A. Reeves created a public ritual to contemplate loss in all forms: the loss of loved ones, relationships, health, and worlds we once knew—as well as the practices that have helped us endure. Visitors were invited to share their experience on a scroll and place it upon an illuminated altar. Lit from within, each response became a devotional candle, and together formed an evolving field of light. Selected reflections were projected throughout the Chapel, and visitors could sit in the apse to contemplate the experiences of others as well as their own. After the End offered a modern refuge that reminded us we are not alone as we mourn the end of one reality and enter the next.

After the End was made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.