Abstract
Andreas Huyssen writes, ‘Remembrance as a vital human activity shapes our links to the past, and the ways we remember define us in the present. As individuals and societies, we need the past to construct and to anchor our identities and to nurture a vision of the future.’ Memory is continually affected by a complex spectrum of states such as forgetting, denial, repression, trauma, recounting and reconsidering, stimulated by equally complex changes in context and changes over time. The apprehension and reflective comprehension of landscape is similarly beset by such complexities. Just as the nature and qualities of memory comprise inherently fading, shifting and fleeting impressions of things which are themselves ever-changing, an understanding of a landscape, as well as the landscape itself, is a constantly evolving, emerging response to both immense and intimate influences. There is an incongruity between the inherent changeability of both landscapes and memories, and the conventional, formal strategies of commemoration that typify the constructed landscape memorial. The design work presented in this paper brings together such explorations of memory and landscape by examining the ‘memorial’. This article examines two projects. One concerns the fate of illegal refugees travelling to Australia: The SIEVX Memorial Project. The other, An Anti-Memorial to Heroin Overdose Victims, was designed by the author as part of the 2001 Melbourne Festival.
Highlights
The etymological roots of ‘monument’ and ‘memory’ are linked
All too often it is said that memorials are about teaching a sort of lesson, so that society will not forget the past and repeat its mistakes
The act of remembering implies a transformation of memories
Summary
The etymological roots of ‘monument’ and ‘memory’ are linked. Both evolve from words meaning to remind and to be mindful. This article examines two recent anti-memorial projects in my design practice: An Anti-Memorial to Heroin Overdose Victims – installed for the Melbourne Festival in St Kilda, Victoria, 2001 – and The SIEVX Memorial Project – mounted in Canberra during 2007. The projects discussed here deliberately deal with the complex qualities of memory and remembrance practices in relation to contemporary social and political issues.
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