Memorials That Move

9/11 Memorial Competition Entry: Jonathan, Canada

As most traditional memorials are greyscale, so are they static. Our new century has changed our perceptions to include the possibilities of what we experience being a “moving target.” Here is one example from the chapter about movement.

It was from a Jonathan in Canada. I never found him to hear his story, but his multi-dimensional moving memorial amazed me. Its purpose was to connect 9/11 to other tragic events in history, past, present and future.

“All…victims…are represented by an array of wires…connected to the bedrock of the site and at the other end to a series of steel columns. These wires will also attach to a grass ground plane floating at street level. The wires will express a degree of tension by deforming these columns into a wide variety of forms…and by pulling the ground plane into a variety of folds. Placed between each column are a series of fabric veils which will billow in the winds…and are a metaphoric expression of the souls of the victims. The columns will peel away from a large glass plane upon which are inscribed the place and dates of various atrocities that have occurred in the last century; the wires and veils will be symbolically using the deaths of the victims as a means of exposing other atrocities and will remember the countless unidentified victims of past events in our shared global community.”