Mary Becker: We Regret to Inform You

"We Regret to Inform You" originated with a World War I soldier depicted on a tobacco trading card from the early 1900s. Artist Becker incorporated a white figurine, gifted by a German woman who unearths artifacts near a porcelain factory. The soldier, unaware of his own death, symbolically marches across the barren expanse of no man's land. This intimate shrine captures what follows: a ritualized honoring of horror, a way for the living to process and contain the unbearable loss of war. The piece speaks to memory, sacrifice, and the fragile boundaries between life and death.