Stuart Burch
www.stuartburch.com
  • 01 Home
  • 02 Articles
  • 03 Blog
  • 04 Big Ben
  • 05 Reviews
  • 06 Talks
  • 07 Contact
  • 08 Search
  • 09 Twitter
  • 10 Etisarap

Spontaneous memorials to collective grief

4/8/2011

 
VVM letter
Letter left at the VVM on 21/03/2008
Traumatic events often lead to the creation of spontaneous memorials prompted by outpourings of collective grief. The spot where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, for example, became a shrine. The demise of Princess Diana led to something similar in the UK. However, the fact that her death occurred abroad meant that proxy spaces had to be found for the laying of flowers and leaving of messages. These sites tended to be situated outside civic or religious buildings as well as adjacent to existing monuments, including war memorials. However, unlike obelisks in stone or statues in bronze, these spontaneous acts of commemoration were temporary. The flowers for Diana are no longer there. Yet the memory of them remains.

A further such memorial is being carefully dismantled in central Oslo. The area outside the cathedral has become a makeshift shrine to those killed in the terrorist attacks of 22nd July. The flowers and other organic material will be composted and the wax from the candles recycled. But the messages and mementos are to be preserved in the national archive.

A similar process of preservation and documentation has taken place at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Artefacts left there continue to be gathered up and safeguarded to become part of a living and very public collection.

This will also be the case in Norway. Those traces of collective grief left on a street in central Oslo are destined to become sources of collective memory.

Further reading
Curtis, Paulette G. (2010) "Stewarding a living collection: the national park service and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection", Museum Anthropology, Vol. 33, Iss. 1, pp. 49-61
Phelps, Angela (1998) "Memorials without location: creating heritage places", Area, Vol. 30 (2), pp. 166-8


Red Cross advertisement
The red rose became a rallying symbol in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 22nd July. It features here in an advertisement for the Norwegian Red Cross (photograph taken in Tromsø, 11/08/2011).

Comments are closed.
    Author
    an extinct parasite
    of several hosts
    Why parasite?

    Try the best you can

    Para, jämsides med.
    En annan sort.
    Dénis Lindbohm,
    Bevingaren, 1980: 90

    Picture
    Even a parasite like me should be permitted to feed at the banquet of knowledge

    I once posted comments as Bevingaren at guardian.co.uk

    Guggenheim New York, parasitized

    Archives

    July 2019
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    August 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    November 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

    Categories

    All
    Architecture
    Archive
    Art
    Commemoration
    Dénis Lindbohm
    Dennis Potter
    Design
    Dylan Thomas
    Ethics
    Framing
    Freedom Of Speech
    Heritage
    Heroes And Villains
    History
    Illicit Trade
    Landscape
    Media
    Memorial
    Museum
    Music
    Nordic
    Para
    Politics
    Rupert Murdoch
    Science
    Science Fiction
    Shockmolt
    Statue
    Tourism
    Words

    Stuart Burch
    View my profile on LinkedIn
    _
    Note    All parasitoids are parasites, but not all parasites are parasitoids
    Parasitoid    "A parasite that always ultimately destroys its host" (Oxford English Dictionary)


        I live off you
        And you live off me
        And the whole world
        Lives off everybody

        See we gotta be exploited
        By somebody, by somebody,             by somebody
       
        X-Ray Spex
            <I live off you>
        Germ Free Adolescents
            1978  

    From symbiosis
    to parasitism
    is a short step.
    The word is
    now a virus.
    William Burroughs, The word is now a virus
    William Burroughs
    <operation rewrite>

    Do nothing
    that can
    harm
    your host!

    Hal Clement
    <
    Needle>
    1950
key words: architecture | archive | art | commemoration | design | ethics | framing | freedom of speech | heritage | heroes and villains | history | illicit trade | landscape | media | memorial | memory | museum | music | nordic | nottingham trent university | parasite | politics | science fiction | shockmolt | statue | stuart burch | tourism | words |