Frameworks for Loss & Permanence Initiative

FLPI curates cross-disciplinary conversations which examine works of art through the lens of absence/presence, mortality, and other themes of loss and permanence, considering how personal and methodological frameworks shape our interpretations.

Genesis of FLPI

While death, transience, and loss are universal to human experience, humanity has exhibited no singular response to these experiences. Across centuries and cultures, humans have continuously framed and re-framed how they understand these themes from within a variety of worldviews, which also find diverse expression in works of art.

In spite of the universality of these experiences, opportunities to discuss the diverse perspectives that inform our creativity, research, and concerns about loss and permanence are rare. FLPI was formed to create such opportunities.

Framing/Re-Framing Loss and Permanence Colloquia

This interdisciplinary colloquium series explores how our frameworks—both personal and discipline-specific—shape our understanding of and responses to artistic expressions of death, loss, and permanence.

Our approach is intentionally conversational, with participants from various fields in the Arts and Sciences contributing to discussions centered around specific works of art. Our collective engagement with these works illuminates both broader critical issues related to loss and permanence and the ways that our methodological and personal frameworks shape our reception of them.

The 2024-25 colloquium series, “Missing Bodies, Missing Persons: Artworks Illuminating and Interrogating Human Existence,” explores the complex role that the body plays in our experience of human existence through the lens of three sub-themes: “Disappeared Bodies,” “Technological Bodies,” and “Invisible Bodies.”

“Disappeared Bodies: Mourning in Absentia | Missing Bodies, Missing Persons: Artworks Illuminating and Interrogating Human Existence” | December 10, 2024
Works considered: Relicarios by Erika Diettes, and poems for the ‘disappeared’ by Martín Espada, Pablo Neruda, Margaret Randall, and Ceclia Vicuña.
"Missing Bodies, Missing Persons: How Art Illuminates and Complicates ‘Encounters’ with the Dead: Bodies/Embodiment” | May 2, 2024
Works considered: Selected 'Candy Works' by Felix Gonzalez-Torres: "Untitled" (Ross), 1991 and "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991; selected post-mortem musical performances of Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson
"Missing Bodies, Missing Persons: How Art Illuminates and Complicates ‘Encounters’ with the Dead: Absence/Presence” | April 4, 2024
Works considered: 9/11 Memorial in NYC, The Wind Phone by writer/director Kristen Gerweck
"Missing Bodies, Missing Persons: How Art Illuminates and Complicates ‘Encounters’ with the Dead: Witness” | February 15, 2024
Work considered: Murambi, The Book of Bones by Boubacar Boris Diop
“Frameworks of Representation” | May 7, 2021
Works considered: Select photographic images of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda interior, including Representative John Lewis lying in state; urban memorial to George Floyd.
“After Catastrophic Loss: Finding What Is No Longer There” | November 20, 2019
Work considered: Salient: A Poem by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.
“Framing/Re-Framing Loss and Permanence: Absent Presence” | December 10, 2019
Works considered: National Memorial for Peace and Justice (‘Lynching Memorial’) | Alabama, USA; ‘Confiscated Shoes’ installation | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.; Keiskamma Altarpiece | South Africa

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