ANNA MARIA – Anna Maria resident, photographer and artist Cathy Tobias and others are creating a public art installation that memorializes Floridians who lost their lives to COVID-19.
Those lives are being honored by the creation of a public art installation known as the COVID Ribbon Memorial of Florida. The installation consists of a string of brightly colored plastic ribbons that’s more than two and a half football fields long, with each ribbon representing a life lost.
As of Monday, Feb. 8, 27,696 Florida residents had died in association with COVID-19, according to the Florida Department of Health.
At 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16, the COVID Ribbon Memorial of Florida will be displayed on the public beach near the Sandbar restaurant in Anna Maria at 100 Spring Ave. Those who attend will be asked to gather on the beach and help hold up the string of ribbons as they’re stretched out along the beach. Attendees are invited to bring permanent markers and use them to write on the ribbons the names of loved ones lost.
The Feb. 16 event is open to the entire community and residents and visitors alike are invited to participate. The event will be conducted according to COVID-19 guidelines that include proper social distancing and mandatory masks or face-coverings.
An artist’s perspective
When interviewed last week, Tobias explained how the COVID Ribbon Memorial of Florida came to be.
“It started in mid-November. I just wanted a way to wrap my head around and memorialize and emphasize the number of people that died,” she said.
Tobias originally contemplated an art project that represented the lives of all American lives lost to COVID-19, but she realized a project of that magnitude might be too ambitious and too costly.
“So, I started with Florida,” Tobias said, noting there were about 16,000 COVID-19 deaths in the state at the time.
“Is it even possible? Do people care? Are people going to be moved by this and find it to be something meaningful to them? Is this something we can use to heal together as a community and individually?” Tobias said, of the questions she asked herself when contemplating the project.
“I kept thinking about it and I came up with this idea for these plastic ribbons. I started tying them and got my sister Judy (Tobias) to work on it too. We got through quite a few of them and I recruited some friends that are also working on it,” Tobias said.
Tobias and her sister each started with 1,200 feet of twine. As they’re completed, the sections are tied together to form the single and still-growing string of ribbons currently displayed in the front yard of Tobias’ Anna Maria home.
“It’s been quite impactful. As I tie them, I think about these being people who lost their lives and just how many there are. I couldn’t wrap my head around the number of people dead. It’s hard to grasp. It’s a huge number and it’s something we haven’t experienced in our lifetime. I didn’t want them to go by unrecognized,” Tobias said.
“I wanted to create something we could physically touch and see and get the enormity of the loss. Thankfully, it’s a low percentage of the people who had COVID, but it’s still a lot of lives. I don’t want it to be political or anything like that. I want this to help the community heal together,” Tobias said.
“Maybe part of it is that I worked in healthcare and I’ve worked around people who have died. And maybe it’s because I had a loved one, a very young child, die many years ago. I know what it’s like to lose a family member and a loved one.
“In Florida, we’re now up to more than 27,000 people who’ve died, and there’s a much greater number of lives who’ve been impacted by losing family members, friends, and spouses. These are human lives. It’s not just a number on TV,” Tobias said.
Regarding the Feb. 16 event, Tobias said, “This is its first public engagement. I envision the ribbons stretched out on the beach so we can also see how long it is and what it looks like. We’ll take some time to remember the people who lost their lives, and their families too. And people can write the name and date of someone they know who lost their life. We want to include that, so the installation is interactive. I really want this to be a positive event where we can experience healing. It’s been a tough year,” Tobias said.
“We’re hoping this art installation will travel the state so others can interact with it and remember and honor the lives lost,” she added.
More information is available at the COVID Ribbon Memorial Facebook page and Tobias’ photography can be viewed on her website.
