Complete The Day :
Baltimore City Hall
January 12 - April 3, 2026
100 N. Holliday St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
Complete the Day is an ongoing public and participatory counter-memorial honoring lives cut short by gun violence. The installation gathers reflections from victims’ families and friends as well as community members in response to a question: “How would you like to finish a loved one’s day if it hadn’t been interrupted by gun violence?” Each square on the wall records a respondent’s answer. Collectively, they offer a tribute—an imagined continuation of an ordinary day left incomplete.
The small, chartreuse squares resemble an everyday tool of contemporary life: the Post-it. We use Post-its to leave notes for friends and colleagues, or as reminders to reengage with interrupted tasks. Disposable and ephemeral, they often document fleeting moments, anchoring them in time. The artist, HH Hiaasen began working with the Post-it note form in the aftermath of their father’s murder in a mass shooting at his workplace. One of his last communications was a passed Post-It note.
The squares of Complete the Day are made of silk, the production of which typically involves the death of silkworms; in cultures of ancient China and elsewhere, silk was used in tombs as a medium of communication between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Here, each square was cut and hand-dyed by Hiaasen as its own soft and singular memorial. Blank notes commemorate hours taken from the lives of more than 335 victims of gun violence in the city of Baltimore in 2024 and 2025. The individual squares’ color and placement were determined by each victim’s age at the time of their death. Together, the transcriptions reach across the gulf of interrupted time, continuing our relationship with loved ones no longer with us.
Rooted in loss and love, Complete the Day transforms City Hall into a space of shared memory and healing.
This exhibition is made possible by the Virginia Commonwealth University Dean’s Grant and Virginia Museum of Fine Art Fellowship. Special thanks to Baltimore Peace Movement, Hannah Brancato, Valeska Populoh.
Molly Garrett for graphic design, Mariah B. Jones for website design, Cassie Grace, Elyse Spencer and Jasmine Washington for installation assistance. Wall text by Stamatina Gregory with editing by Deirdre O’Dwyer.
Photography by Vivian Marie Doering
Video by Chelsea Harman
For fellow grievers on their own nonlinear paths.
If you would like to complete the day of a loved one, visit completetheday.info
Complete the Day responses:
Grounding notes from my dad: Rob Hiaasen.