Spencer Bailey

And I actually got to – very luckily got to work with our friend Michael Beirut on that project.

And he designed such a beautiful cover and book and didn't have to change a thing.

It was extraordinary and a dream.

And even getting to put that book out when it did –

It was a dark moment.

I mean, it was October, like second wave of COVID.

I had to do the book launch over Zoom.

I had to lose a lot of those experiences that an author gets to enjoy when their book comes out.

But I did get to, at the very least, understand that this book was entering a place in time that was extremely relevant.

Yeah.

Like, all of a sudden I'm talking on BBC about memorials and sharing why I think we need better memorial making and what that might look like.

The book studies memorials related to genocide, slavery, war, terrorism, dictatorship, mass violence, and collective mourning around the world.

And you said that memorials combine the powers of art, architecture, and collective memory, unlike any other space.

How do spaces shape mourning?

I feel like it's hard to talk about this in the abstract, so I'll use a specific example.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which is designed by Mass Design Group and done in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson.

I won't do justice to it trying to describe it in a couple minutes.

Okay.

But I'll do my best.

It's a space that's rooted in metaphor and is imbued with so much feeling that