a river of all my lost loved ones

Opening Public Performance on August 28, 2026 from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Over the summer, workshops with children in the Hippodrome’s programs asked them to draw and write about what it feels like to feel safe, what they wish the world could see about them, what they carry that is too heavy to explain, and more. They produced over 600 drawings.

a river full of all my lost loved ones, a new public project by Conrad Cheung (Assistant Professor of 3D + Extended Media) converts the Hippodrome’s six monumental columns into 26-foot-tall scenes that combine and transform children’s drawings: crowded waiting rooms that open onto vast landscapes, patterns that tilt into tightropes that characters ride, a tower that stands in a moat full of unlikely loungers. Portions of the scenes are printed in thermochromic ink, which disappears as the heat of the day arrives and returns as the air cools.

Titled after a line written on the back of one child’s drawing, a river full of all my lost loved ones opens on August 28, 2026, with a musical performance developed with composer Colin Self and performed live by Nailah Clarke, Quil Darling, Ang DeCarlis, Phia Derias, Robert Edmondson, Mattia Imponenti, Bionca Darby Kleinberg, Madi Moyer, Luke Sechrest, Tom Smith and Abe Sulin.