Artist Rowan Renee will be joined in conversation with Neela Wickremesinghe, Green-Wood’s Robert A. and Elizabeth Rohn Jeffe Director of Restoration and Preservation, to discuss the role of preservation and archival research in memorializing queer histories and narratives.

This discussion is presented in conjunction with The Perimeter Path, an immersive installation currently on view in the Historic Chapel. Through extensive onsite research into the public burial lots around the Cemetery’s perimeter and the meticulous crafting of works in marble and glass, Renee investigates how race and class influence memorialization.

Historically, public lots at Green-Wood offered more affordable burial sites for the working class and poor. Many are located near the Cemetery’s perimeter, where land was seen as less valuable because of its proximity to city streets. In a historic site like Green-Wood, known for its stunning and elaborate Victorian era monuments, Renee shifts visitors’ focus to the erasures and absences in the landscape that point to societal and systemic patterns of inequity.