The City of St. Albert has created an art installation to help residents express how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted them.
The Healing Project is now on display at St. Albert Place for the month of September.
The installation is a tree and residents were invited to write their thoughts and feelings on individual leaves.
“The tree itself represents growth and loss because the leaves do in fact, die off, go back into the earth, and then springtime comes, there’s regrowth, so it was a good, symbolic of what our residents felt,” said Emilie Neilson of the City of St. Albert.
“We want to capture that loss, that grief, the experiences that fall from the tree. But then we also wanted to capture the hope and moving forward which represented the regrowth.”
Neilson says reading the contributions can be an emotional experience.
“The most powerful ones are the ones you can see it written out. So the kids, when they write down, ‘I couldn’t go to school,’ ‘I couldn’t play with my friends,’ some, lots actually, who lost loved ones, and to see it in their own writing is very powerful.”
Anyone who wants to contribute to the installation can write their feelings on a leaf and place them in a suggestion box at St. Albert Place during the month of September.
