The Stumbling Stickers Project: “Memory, Resistance, and Care.”

This collaboration between Rev. Ashley Goff and me got a lot of press and emails from strangers praising our work and telling us how inspired they were. As I replied to emails I realized it was a complex story of neighbors caring for each other and community, yet very specific to our experiences in Arlington, VA.

*Ashley, right, and me at the first location we put down a Stumbling Sticker. Arlington, August 2025. Photo LouLou Marino.*

We are hardly alone as we come up with ideas and designs and rituals. We have been inspired by many who have gone before us, shared their ideas, and told us about the lives they wanted to live. As the story of The Stumbling Stickers Project goes further beyond our tiny Arlington, Virginia, I wanted to put the full story here so others may find the inspiration to express their own experiences through their own art and ritual and do what works best for the people of their own communities.

The Collaborators

Rev. Ashley Goff of Arlington Presbyterian Church (APC) on Columbia Pike, in Arlington, VA, and I have known each other for many years, and have made much time to be creative together. We discussed many topics, explored all kinds of art-making and how it helps us understand and respond to complex concepts. As a docent at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington D.C., I have spent 25 years giving tours to visitors and showing them how Asian artists over the millennia have tried to express complex concepts through the visual arts.

On July 14, 2025 Ashley sent me an email. ICE had picked up a few people at the Arlington Courthouse last week. “Really horrible,” she wrote. She said that Jessica Kaplan from Arlington Historical Society had also recently come to APC and shared about the stumbling stones.

“The ICE incident and the stumbling stones have me thinking about to mark these spots where ICE has been in Arlington and taken someone.” She planned it to be impermanent—“like a faux candle and some language on a card” and “add a rose or flower?” Something really simple. Basically not letting ICE have the last word.

The Sticker

Earlier this year, in March 2025, Ashley had asked me to design a sticker which would denote a safe space. It would help those Arlington residents who feel unsafe and want to be somewhere safe, and the sticker—posted on doors of businesses and non-profits—will let them know that the space is safe for them, these are allies.

As she spoke, an image from 2009 popped up in my mind. I had designed and created a Handmade Storybook for author Richard L. Rose’s story The Queen & The Crocodile. In that story there was a line,

“Hearts by double motion live: receive and give.”
- Richard L. Rose, The Queen & The Crocodile

I went back to the artwork and re-read the story. I revised it. I played with new colors, those which would work for our situation today. I created a new version of the artwork and named it Hearts & Hand. Ashley’s committee picked one they liked best. It had a green background and a pink heart.

When Ashley had the idea for marking the spots on the sidewalk, I thought the stickers could be made to be 6” across, like the size of the brass Stumbling Stones the Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington (MEA) project was creating to put into the sidewalks of Arlington. They could be printed as decals to be stuck on the sidewalk. Impermanent, like Ashley imagined, but also a bit permanent. She found a printer who could print them inexpensively and ordered 50 stickers of my design. The project was a go!

*Hearts & Hand, by Sushmita Mazumdar, 2025*

The Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington (MEA) Project

On Saturday June 7th, 2025, I bumped into Ashley as we both walked to the spot where the MEA event was going to take place. It was the first time either of us was attending one of their dedication events. That afternoon they put down two Stumbling Stones near the Sheraton hotel on Columbia Pike, which honored brothers Thorton and Daniel Check.

From the project website I had learned this: Since the late 1700s, African Americans made important contributions to the development of Arlington County. Until recently, histories of Arlington often excluded or misrepresented their stories.

Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington (MEA), a project sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington, brings our county's African American history to light. Research into local records uncovers the brutal truth of enslavement in Arlington and the human cost for all involved. Most importantly, it reveals the fortitude and resilience of the local enslaved community.

MEA honors the lives and contributions of Arlington's once enslaved people by placing memorial plaques throughout the county at sites of enslavement.”

When the first Stumbling Stones were put into Arlington’s sidewalks, I had learned that the students of Arlington Tech High School had created the brass Stumbling Stones and they had learned the history of our county while learning how to make the brass objects.

Stumbling Stones

The idea of the Stumbling Stones were not new. I learned from the MEA website that they were the creation of German artist Gunter Demnig who frequently says, citing the Talmud, a central text of Judaism, "A person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.” Thus, beginning in 1992, he decided to create an artwork that would quietly bring people’s attention to the millions of people—Jewish, gay, Gypsy, disabled, and other—murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945—with a focus on memorializing them through their names.

Demnig created small concrete cubes topped by inscribed brass plates to be installed flush with the street or sidewalk near the last place each person freely chose to reside, work, or study. He called them Stolperstein, or stumbling blocks or stumbling stones. Many read, “Here lived,” followed by a birthdate, deportation date, the name of the concentration camp in which they were murdered, and the date of their death. The artist intended for people to stumble upon them during everyday life. “You won’t fall,” Demnig once said. “But if you stumble and look, you must bow down with your head and your heart.”

I remember how the Black Lives Matter movement also was all about remembering the names of those who had been murdered. For our project however, we did not want to mention names. “Only the harm,” Ashley noted. Hearts over Harm, I thought.

The Map

As we discussed further, I wondered if APC could track the spots where we put down stickers on a map of Arlington. I remembered how in 2016 when ICE was at Gates of Ballston, where my studio was. Now I also had a studio on the Pike and ICE was here. In LA they went to Home Depot. Where do they come in Arlington? Recently, a local woman had stopped in to tell me she had seen ICE pick up a person from down the street and another person ran across the street and escaped (hopefully). There were many immigrants who lived here. I knew many many others who were worried. People were worried about so many things and we had been inviting them in and doing art with them as they told us of their worries.

Ashley got a map from the county. It mentioned the voting precincts. She ordered smaller versions of the big sticker to place on the map documenting the locations of the Stumbling Stickers.

The Ritual

Ashley created a ritual that would go with the putting down of stickers. As I shared the idea with some people who come to the Studio, they wanted to join in. A professor, a political asylum seeker, an activist, an artist who had fled his country to be here. Because so many people don’t know what to do and want to do something.

“We are here to tell the truth, to name the harm that was done on this block, to place a mark where someone was taken by ICE, and remember what others would rather forget and erase. But, also to build a community of memory, resistance and care.” - Rev. Ashley Goff

As I made a list of what supplies to take, I knew that the space where you put down a sticker has to be clean and dust-free. So I picked up a tiny broom and dustpan. Then I took the usual bone folder from my bookmaking supplies and a baren from our printmaking supplies would help smooth the sticker down. Ashley got a battery operated heat gun. She also had the addresses which had been verified by the community and neighbors.

The Reflections

When we met next, Ashley noted contrasts:

Sticker vs ICE

Hand vs Handcuffs

Heart vs Heartless

Green (nature, life) vs Black (fear, death)

Love vs Hate

Open vs Masked

Giving vs Taking

Heal vs Harm

Artist LouLou’ Marino works with me at Studio PAUSE. She added her reflections as well:

The black heart is what ICE took, took away, peeling it away from the community, dark, unknown, the grief left.

The pink heart is the love from the family, the community, what remains, what we remember, what we will hold + keep, have the last word, we fill the void left with love, compassion, remembrance.

The Launch

When visiting dear friends over tea the previous week, I was surprised to share that I felt unsafe. Ashley was going on a sabbatical and I suddenly I felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere I felt safe making art. I started looking online. Where could I go?

I thought about National Parks which have artists residencies. Maybe I could do that? But did I really want to go to say, North Dakota? As I thought about those lovely Amtrak trips I have taken somehow they did not feel so safe right now. Facebook showed me an ad for an artist’s residency in a castle in France. That was so not me! Then I saw an ad for a book arts master class in Berlin. I applied. I had not attended school in the US, let alone art school. I was a self-taught book artist, and I had taught a lot over the last 20 years. Now it was time to go to school!

My husband and I were dropping our daughter back to university when I learned that an ArlNow reporter will be joining us the next day as we put down the stickers. It was a Tuesday afternoon when we met and put down the stickers. A small group of people we knew joined us. Ashley read her ritual, I swept the bit of sidewalk where we decided to put the sticker, and then stuck it down. I used the printmaking baren to smooth it over. Then Ashley used the heat gun to seal the edges and I used the tip of the bonefolder to press the edges down. Then we put the small sticker on the map of our little county, noting where we had placed the Stumbling Stickers.

At the next locations I let people pick and put down stickers. Ashley invited everyone to read aloud the ritual and reflect on the questions. She had a long history of social justice work. Sometimes when we are numb and have no words for how we feel, we need others to inspire us, to give us words they know. It worked for me.

As we stopped at various locations we saw the sticker from different angles. Someone talked about how, from their angle, it looked like a hand emerging out of the sidewalk, offering hearts. Another saw it like a hand in blessing, a heart pouring out from the palm. By the 6th sticker, I was amazed by how the little group of participants—where people had joined us at certain locations and then left—were responding to the sticker and the ritual. I myself felt better knowing I was not here alone. Knowing that I was part of a caring community. As I helped people with my art, they helped me with their strength. A give and a receive, like the sticker artwork.

*Map after four locations got their Stumbling Stickers. Arlington, August 2025. Photo LouLou Marino.*

Local ArlNow reporter Katie Taranto wrote, “Local church and artist memorialize Arlington ICE arrests with ‘stumbling stickers,’” and it was published on August 20, 2025. Three days later I was in Berlin. You know what else was there in Berlin? Stolperstein!

My Masterclass

I had taken along a big Stumbling Sticker and a small one which we used for the map. What book would I create in the class? On my walk from the hotel to the art institute I found many cobblestones untethered, lying around. Can I pick one? I did and I took it to class.

*Cobblestones waiting to be installed perhaps, Pankow, Berlin. August 2025.*

As part of my homework, I went to visit the stolperstein. I took many photos of the small memorials in the ground and also of the houses and businesses that sponsored them. On the way back to the hotel I found a place where I could make small prints. The next day I glued them into prints I had made the previous day in class. My classmates told me about stolperstein near their homes in South Western Germany and the Netherlands. They said they will send me photos.

*Stumbling across my first stolperstein outisde the Weinmeisterstasse subway station, Mitte, Berlin, August 2025.*

As the others in class heard about my project they reached out with worries and care. A German woman who sat across from me said she was born 10 years after the end of WW2. She knew about resistance. She covered her eyes saying she didn’t want to see it happen again, in my country. Another woman was South African. She said she worried for me because she had seen how people can weaponize the color of your skin and use it against you. I asked her to write it down for me to include in the book. A British man who was also a classmate told me many stories of cobblestones and we discussed how people tell stories of trauma to the next generation and when they don’t. We discussed how I had seen the names of people who were murdered and also seen so many nameless people who were still alive. I asked him for words. He have me questions like Who lives and who is forgotten? Who passed by here? I asked the German woman to write me something in German to take back with me. She translated it to be: Love is the strongest power. (I wrote the German words in the phonetic Devanagari script so I could pronounce them correctly.)

*Last page from my artists book, where I included the cobblestone from Pankow, Berlin, and handwritten words which my classmates shared with me. Berlin, August 2025.*

Later I would visit the East Side Gallery. This is from their website, “At 1316 metres long, the open-air art gallery on the banks of the Spree in Friedrichshain is the longest continuous section of the Berlin Wall still in existence. Immediately after the wall came down on 9 November 1989, 118 artists from 21 countries began painting the East Side Gallery, and it officially opened as an open air gallery on 28 September 1990. Just over a year later, it was given protected memorial status. The artists comment on the political changes in 1989/90.” My Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus audio tour explained how the paintings were the artist’s wishes for Germany to reunite.

*At the part of the Berlin wall that was made into the East Side Gallery, Berlin, August 2025.*

*At an airport souvenir shop I learned more about the Buddy Bear project and The Art of Tolerance. There had been a Buddy Bear at my hotel’s reception! August 2025, Berlin.*

*Buddy Bear at my hotel, Berlin, August 2025.*

Our Response

I returned home to many emails about the stickers and even some news stories. Someone from DC wanted to use our stickers to mark spots in DC from where people had been taken. But the DC story was so different from Arlington’s. They had the National Guard there, wonderful people suddenly made scary. They had the guy who threw the sandwich. Ashley gave them the name of the printer’s website. I wondered if my sticker would make any sense there.

When I returned from Berlin I found that we had been on NBC4!

Tuesday I got a email from an organization in Tennessee. They had had a similar idea of creating a sticker and wanted to connect and would love to partner with us on this. As I replied I thought it was time to write all this all down. What exactly was my answer to all this interest?

I replied with thanks telling him how our sidewalk decal was somehow marking the space with "memory, resistance, and hope,” as Ashley said. It goes with a ritual Ashley created so it's more than just the sticker. The ritual gave us the opportunity to think and feel deeply in community as we stood around each sticker.

*Feeling safe in community, Arlington, August 2025.*

I think our sticker is somehow very Arlington, as it grew from our very local systems and experiences. I shared how we are happy to share how we did it and I would encourage everyone to create their own stickers based on their own specific expression of how the situation and experience is where they live. To me the nuance of expressing the specific experience is very important. For example DC is right across the river from us but the experience is so different!

I said also I was happy to share the story and where we printed the stickers etc and also happy to document how everyone is doing this on my blog as well, to inspire others. “There is more so I think I’ll take the time to write it out as a blog post on my website and share with you shortly,” I wrote.

All I wanted to tell people was please be encouraged and inspired to create your own art in response to how you feel. It is what I do as an artist and I have been teaching everyday people to do exactly that for 20 years. I know we can all do that in our own way.

Then Ashley replied to the same email. “For me, the important part of the story is how we built off of what was already existing here in Arlington. Sush and I have known each other for a while now. I'm in a committee with trusted neighbors trying to offer mutual care to neighbors. This started back in December as we prepared for this Regime. Sush and I had one idea for the sticker. It morphed into another once we connected over a placement of a stumbling stone. When I get to work with Sush, it's just one "yes" after another until the idea lands.

I'll echo Sush to say I hope you create an image that is right for you. I hope our sticker and what we are doing inspires others--and I hope people make it as contextual as possible. One thing that White Supremacy/Christian Nationalism tries to do is disrupt the experience of being place based--being hyper local and connected to neighbors. Sush's image came out of her own work in Arlington and being a resident of Arlington.”
One practical tip, Ashley added: we created our stickers off of Sticker Genius. Fairly inexpensive and fast turnaround with production and shipping. :)

So we invite you to go for it. Be inspired! By us, by your own feelings, by your community! And let us know. I will be happy to add the links to all the projects here.

Oh, and yesterday a reporter came to my studio and I was on TV at 9 pm! Check it out here.