As part of a personal commemoration of the fire, letters were mailed to the home addresses of all of the victims – anticipating that they would be returned. I was looking for a way to make the number 146 concrete – because I find it hard to visualize that tally in my head. I also imagined that whatever would be stamped on the returned envelops would evoke a present-day reality about the memory of the individual personalities lost in the fire. As of today, all but 14 have been sent back.

Tags: Fatality, Italian, Jewish, Labor, Women