LEWISTON, M.E. (WHDH) — The Lewiston, Maine community is banding together to create an art project honoring the lives lost in a mass shooting that happened in the city nearly two years ago. Inside a barn turned art studio, community organizations, families of victims, and other volunteers are building the “Forget ME Not” sculpture project.
On October 25, 2023, 18 people were killed, and 13 others were wounded when a gunman went on a shooting spree inside a bar and bowling alley.
“The morning after the shooting, there was this sense of, you know, free falling,” said Jen McDermott, a Maine-based artist involved with the project.
Molloy, who specializes in large-scale public collaborations, said she has been traveling back and forth from New York to Maine for months to make the art display a reality. She also enlisted the help of collective-trauma and art therapy experts to help the make the sculpture connect deeply to the community.
“It references the Androscoggin River, which connects Lewiston and Auburn as communities. It also references grief. So you start off this flowing state of grief, and then it rises up to hope,” said Molloy.
When visitors enter the space, all the names of the victims are front and center. There are 18 panels with flowers, each one represents one year of life.
“You’ll walk in and see deep, deep blue on the bottom fabric rising up to light, and then you get to the top of the piece where it sort of curves in. And those are going to be 96 images of mylar panels drawn by folks in the community, predominantly youth,” said Molloy.
Molloy said the effort from the community is what brought the project to life.
“They’re tributes by folks that loved them and lost them. And they were also images made by people that were at the shooting,” Molloy explained. “This is such a ‘we.’ This is such a massive collective effort to make this a reality.”
The Forget ME Not memorial opens on November 7 at LA Arts in Lewiston, Maine.
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