The gates to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens had once more swung open, and assistant professor of pathology Will Jeck was among the first ones through. He visited the first morning he was allowed and sat on a bench overlooking the Terraces, soaking in the beauty and serenity and reflecting on a year that had him performing not just his normal work as a pathologist, but also autopsies on COVID patients.

Caitlin Margaret Kelly M.F.A. ’14 studies a photo of a back-to-the-lander teaching a younger woman how to aim a rifle, then slides it along the floor toward the center of a wall. Placed there, though, the gun appears to threaten the boy in the photo next to it, standing in his patch of poison ivy. She moves it again, but here it targets a decaying church, its steeple slumping into its sanctuary.