attempt to engage new generations and visitors in the search for memory , through the absence of direct signs , or overt metaphorical representation ?
Such issues and complex questions ( often without answer ) call out for a conscious and humble approach as we need to be mindful and weary of the expectation of creating instant metaphors and artificial meanings . Given that often , and especially , in the wake of human catastrophes a “ redemptive aesthetic ” that asks us to consider art as a correction of life , emerges in the affected communities , it is important to constantly remind ourselves that neither art nor architecture can ( nor should these practices attempt to ) compensate public trauma or mass murder . What architectural and artistic practices can do is establish a dialogical relation with those traumatic events and contribute to frame the complex and often difficult process toward understanding and , perhaps , only perhaps , healing .
At the same time , I believe that upon conceiving and designing these projects ( monuments , museums , memorials ) we should be aware of significant risks , such as the objectivation of memory , the aesthetization of suffering or worse , its banalization . But these are risks that we should take , with care and respect , so that memory does not stay immersed inside but is affirmed in the public domain . Aesthetics should be at the service of ethics , and of life . As James Baldwin writes in “ The Fire Next Time ”:
“ One must say Yes to life , and embrace it wherever it is found - and it is found in terrible places . … For nothing is fixed , forever and forever , it is not fixed ; the earth is always shifting , the light is always changing , the sea does not cease to grind down rock . Generations do not cease to be born , and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have . The sea rises , the light fails , lovers cling to each other and children cling to us . The moment we cease to hold each other , the moment we break faith with one another , the sea engulfs us and the light goes out ”. overview
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