The 77 individuals who lost their lives during the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway will be commemorated by this competition-winning intervention by Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg to sever a strip of headland from the coastline near Oslo.
Jonas Dahlberg plans to pay tribute to victims by creating "a wound or a cut within the landscape" that will symbolise the feeling of loss created by the events of 22 July, which included the bombing of a government quarter in Oslo and the shootings that followed on the nearby island of Utøya.
The artist plans to make a 3.5 metre-wide slice between the surface of the landscape and the waterline in the Norwegian village of Sørbråten - just across the water from Utøya - effectively making it impossible to reach the end of the headland on foot.
"My concept for the Memorial Sørbråten proposes a wound or a cut within nature itself," explained Dahlberg in his competition text. "It reproduces the physical experience of taking away, reflecting the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died."
A five-minute trail will lead visitors across the landscape towards the memorial. This pathway will become a tunnel, arriving at a cutaway that faces across the water towards a stone wall inscribed with the names of the victims.
"The names will be close enough to see and read clearly, yet ultimately out of reach," said the artist. "This experience hopes to bring visitors to a state of reflection through a poetic rupture or interruption. It should be difficult to see the inherent beauty of the natural setting, without also experiencing a sense of loss."
Dahlberg also plans to use the excavated material to build a second memorial at the government quarter in Oslo, forging a connection between the two sites to reference the connection between the two attacks.
The various trees and plants removed to create the pathway at Sørbråten will form an artificial landscape in Oslo, creating a sunken walkway with tiered seating along one side. Meanwhile, the leftover stone will be used to construct an amphitheatre.
Here's the full announcement from the July 22 Memorials organisation:
Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg to design July 22 Memorial sites in Norway
Director of KORO/Public Art Norway Svein Bjørkås announced the jury's evaluation of submissions and final decision in the closed competition July 22 Memorial sites. The jury's decision was unanimous, voting Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg as winner of the competition.
Dahlberg's concept takes the site at Sørbråten as its point of departure. Here he proposes a wound or a cut within the landscape itself to recreate the physical experience of something being taken away, and to reflect the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died on Utøya. The cut will be a three-and-a-half-metre wide excavation running from the top of the headland at the Sørbråten site to below the waterline and extending to each side. This gap in the landscape will make it impossible to reach the end of the headland.
The material excavated from the cut at Sørbråten will be used to build the foundation for the temporary memorial at the Government Quarter in Oslo, and will also subsequently serve as the foundation for the permanent memorial there.
From the Jury's evaluation of Jonas Dahlberg's proposal:
Jonas Dahlberg's proposal takes the emptiness and traces of the tragic events of 22 July as its starting point. His suggestion for the Sørbråten site is to make a physical incision into the landscape, which can be seen as a symbolic wound. Part of the headland will be removed and visitors will not be able to touch the names of those killed, as these will be engraved into the wall on the other side of the slice out of nature. The void that is created evokes the sense of sudden loss combined with the long-term missing and remembrance of those who perished.
Dahlberg has proposed to move the landmass taken out of the rocky landscape at Sørbråten to the permanent and temporary memorial site in the Government Quarter in Oslo. By using this landmass to create a temporary memorial pathway between Grubbegata and the Deichmanske Library, a connection is forged between the memorial sites at Sørbråten and the Government Quarter. The names of those killed will be recorded on a wall that runs alongside the pathway.
The proposed permanent memorial site in Oslo takes the form of an amphitheatre around Høyblokka. Dahlberg also proposes to use trees taken from Sørbråten in this urban environment to maintain the relationship between the memorial sites in the capital and to the victims of the atrocities at Utøya.
The Jury considers Dahlberg's proposal for Sørbråten as artistically highly original and interesting. It is capable of conveying and confronting the trauma and loss that the 22 July events resulted in in a daring way. The proposal is radical and brave, and evokes the tragic events in a physical and direct manner.