Say Their Names: A Public Art Memorial Project, 2020. Photo by Greg Clark of GoodMiami.org
Say Their Names: A Public Art Memorial Project is a large-scale mural created by Miami-based artist Chire Regans, aka VantaBlack. This project recognizes over 250 lives that have been lost due to gun violence, police violence, hate crimes, gender violence, and domestic violence and act as a site for collective mourning and remembrance.
For the past four years, Regans has worked on The Memorial Portrait Project, an ongoing series of hand-drawn, monochrome portraits of lives lost to systemic racism and societal injustice. The project was initiated after the death of King Carter, a six-year-old child living in Miami-Dade County that died during a gunfight. Since then, Regans has drawn over two hundred people who have been lost to a multitude of causes that disproportionately affect communities of color and whose deaths are often overlooked by traditional media outlets. The majority of those depicted in these works are Black South Floridians, many of whom Regans has become familiar with through families and friends of the victims who contacted her directly to share their stories.
Say Their Names: A Public Art Memorial Project is a major expansion of Regans’ practice, allowing the artist to introduce her work into the public sphere. The mural encompasses writing out the names of victims, which are stenciled and painted onto the wall by the artist herself, and volunteers who have assisted in the project. She intends for the work to be a place where the community can gather, reflect, and pay their respects.
The names represented in Say Their Names are ones that Regans has depicted or will soon depict in her Memorial Portrait Project series, making the mural a public archive of the ongoing work she is doing to commemorate individuals from our community. By the time the mural is finished, Regans will have spent over three months working to complete the work. Through her conversations with Wynwood Norte residents who have walked or driven by, she has discovered that many knew someone whose name is part of the mural; she has collected some of their stories, which can be viewed on her Instagram account (@vantablack305).
The memorial mural is located on the west-facing wall of our campus along NW 6th Avenue and is accessible to visitors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
About the Artist
Chire Regans (b. Saint Louis, MO), aka VantaBlack, is a proud mother, visual artist, truth-teller, and community advocate. After graduating from Florida A&M University, Chire’s artistic practice focused primarily on portraiture. As societal issues began to weigh heavily on her conscience, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement pushed Chire's art in the direction of social awareness and change. Chire serves on the Community Relations Board's Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Committee works as a Teaching Artist at the Perez Art Museum Miami, and is the Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence with the Community Justice Project.