Memory and Mourning features a striking blend of artifacts, interactive stations, images, quotations, and historical analysis that explores the cultural history of grief and its changing outward expression in America since the middle 19th century. Throughout the exhibit, design works to deepen interpretation. Label copy is spare in its cadences, available in its vocabulary.
Imagery is chosen carefully to convey sorrow, shock, anger, guilt, and transcendence.
The range of artifacts is surprising. The exhibit's design includes a secluded area so that visitors can decompress. A resource rack provides space for brochures describing grief counseling programs. Memory and Mourning is a unique examination of historical changes in interior states of mind and outward signs of behavior. The exhibit features four main sections.