Making a Memorial Matter

Abstract

On the fourth anniversary of the 2005 London bombings, a permanent memorial fixture was officially opened in Hyde Park. The installation comprises 52 separate steel pillars clustered into four groups that give an impression of the geographic distribution of the four bombings. Each stele is inscribed with the date and respective time of the explosion as well as the location of the attack. This chapter details how multiple desires and discourses circulated and settled during the process of memorialisation throughout its various phases, including the design, consultation, production ‘in one moment of making’ (Andy Groarke, interview) and inauguration, and its subsequent reception. It develops the discussion in Chapter 2 of the discord between official and vernacular remembrance practices. However, in contrast to the previous cases, whereby groups found their own occasions for remembrance, the Hyde Park memorial provides a case in which diverse interests had to be accommodated and materialised in a single project. The data explored in the course of this chapter show how people managed their interests in light of those of others in order to participate in the work of memorialisation (Figure 4.1).