Making Memorials, Sealing Memories: Healing for Times Past and Present

By Jane Holtz Kay

Something there is that loves - that needs - a memorial. Kitsch or compassionate. Commercial exploitation or maudlin reminiscence. Memorials are never having to say "goodbye." Memorials may pay homage in fragile bits of paper tacked to Ground Zero's fence. But, equally, in garish trinkets and fuzzy whatnots at a Paris traffic island near the underpass where Princess Diana was driven to her death.

Memorial-makers seek to ease dying through eternal monuments. Yet, time may render such offerings into clichés or commonplace: the Yankee Civil War hero astride a horse on many a New England common or a post to mark a Confederate general in a pizzeria's parking lot.

Memorials may reach the height of art in the granite wall of Washington's Vietnam War Memorial or the depths of commerce in a portable traveling show of that wall boxed for libraries and veteran lodges.

"Memories are made of this," goes an old song looking backwards. Yet, the mission of memorial-makers is to serve times to come as well, to enhance the space of the living along with the dead.

Memorial-making is an art that demands a sense of place and a keen eye: it may reach the heights of Saint-Gaudens' striking monument to the Civil War black regiment or descend to the depths of the stilted firefighter sculpture in 2lst century Boston.

At its best, a memorial serves the community of the living rather than the commerce of the few as the World Trade Towers claimants would have it. It must last beyond its tragic origins, as has the Oklahoma City memorial where the candlelit park drew mourners in the afterhours of 9/ll.

On the anniversary of that fateful September day, we look anew at such sacred spaces. Does a monument work best which works most triumphantly? Most subtly? Massively? Or modestly?

Some seek closure by filling Ground Zero's massive footprint with massive forms; others with more subtle forms. Whatever the stirring exercises of the hour, one thing is sure: in the end, the tragic moment will play out once more in the shapes and sentiments that make these grounds sacred for today and compelling for tomorrow as well.

Published and recorded for Tompaine.com, September 11, 2002

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