Date: December 6, 2025
Partnership: Forman Arts Initiative

We partnered with Forman Arts Initiative to host a gentle winter gathering for community members carrying grief during the holiday season. Participants were invited to slow down, share stories, and create candles—offering warmth and light during a time when loss can feel especially present. Through reflection, making, listening, and collective witnessing, the gathering created a space for connection and care, honoring grief as something that can be held together in community.

Date: September 5, 2025
Partnership: 5 Shorts Project

We got to spend the afternoon with young filmmakers who created a documentary on the impact of gun violence. Some takeaways from the meaningful convos about how grief shows up are that connecting, creating, and storytelling can help us feel less alone.

Date: June 8, 2025
Partnership: Scout LTD

What an honor to be witness to, and a part of, the Celebration of Life for UArts, carefully curated by Scout. We brought our pop-up Thread installation, with tailored prompts for the UArts community to grieve & celebrate their lasting legacy. How powerful to be in community to connect through the vitality of art and show solidarity in the wake of rupture.

Date: May 29 - June 1, 2025
Location: Laurel Hill Cemetery

The Thread was thrilled to create our first portable installation for the Philadelphia Death and Arts Festival, held at Laurel Hill East and West Cemeteries. This daring endeavor hosted performances, workshops, panels, reflections spaces, and installations like the Thread that explore aging, dying, and grieving, inviting participants to reimagine how our culture understands death.

Date: May 9, 2025
Location: Vernon Park, Germantown

Undeterred by a windy day, we invited any and all to join us in Vernon Park next to the installation to make grief candles. At a small table seating four at a time, participants rolled beeswax candles and shared acknowledgements and memories of those they were grieving. New connections were sparked as we held compassion for one another and learned about each others’ stories.

Date: Nov. 16, 2024
Partnership: Sisters in Film and Television (SiFT) Media 215

We were thrilled to co-present SiFT Media 215’s screening of The Good Grief Film Project at PhilaMOCA, where eight Philly poets were paired with eight SiFT filmmakers to transform poems of their grief into short films. In addition to the screening and talk back, we led people in memorial candle-making and a musical reflection with recordings from Parallel Wave.

Date: Sept. 28, 2024
Partnership: Germantown Info Hub

We joined many Germantown neighbors, friends, and businesses for the Community of Joy festival, sponsored by GTown Radio, Germantown Info Hub, and Maplewood Mall. Tucked inside of D’Griot Community Gallery, we recorded grief stories from passersby and let them know about the Thread. We had so much fun hanging with friends new and old, and seeing all the best of Germantown.

Date: Oct. 6, 2024
Partnership: Salt Trails Philly

In Fall 2024, we were excited to partner again with Salt Trails Philly for their fourth annual grief processional, Carrying Out Grief Together. Using the five entrances of Vernon Park, grievers moved through Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief. We placed our grief in a basket, passing it from arm to arm, while being led in song by Salt Trails and the Threshold Singers.

Date: July 20, 2024
Partnership: Friends of Vernon Park

Our second installation opened at Vernon Park in the summer of 2024. In partnership with Friends of Vernon Park, Salt Trails Philly, and members of Parallel Wave, friends and neighbors from Germantown gathered to speak to their grief in community with one another, “visit” with lost loved ones, and add to the installation’s mosaic. Salt Trails Philly led us in communal song, and members of Parallel Wave created songs from tributes and memories from attendees.

Date: Dec. 3, 2023
Partnership: Asian Arts Initiative

During the holiday season, The Thread hosted a story sharing and weaving circle at Asian Arts Initiative for any and all grievers. Friends brought a memento that symbolized an unreachable loved one, shared about their grief, while we made a communal weaving. After the event, we walked to the The Thread at the Rail Park and closed our circle.

Date: Oct. 15, 2023
Partnership: Salt Trails Philly

In October 2023, we were thrilled to partner with Salt Trails Philly on their annual community grief processional, held at the Rail Park next to The Thread. Grievers were encouraged to “wear their grief,” gather, sing, and share the communal experience of grief and loss with each other and anyone else in view.

Date: June 24, 2023
Partnership: Friends of the Rail Park

In June 2023, we celebrated our inaugural installation at the Rail Park in Philadelphia, PA. We gathered with friends, neighbors, and community members to make art together, share stories and welcome everyone to our newest installation along with Friends of the Rail Park. Improvisational musicians Parallel Wave created songs from tributes of lost loved ones written by attendees.