This chapter explores the role of arboreal and natural ‘memorials’ in evoking memory and creating meaning. It examines how the planting of commemorative trees, plants and flowers to create garden memorials differentiates from more monumental forms because it requires wilful participation from those who wish to actively remember. Where the erection of a monument in stone and bronze might appear to bring about a moment of closure, a memorial garden usually offers only a start. Seeding, planting and nurturing is seen as a means not an end: gardening invokes collaboration rather than closure. In examining the specific heritage of the memorial garden and arboreta, both for military and civilian purpose, examples are drawn from sites of trauma in Europe and North America, as well as commemorative domains and roads of remembrance in Australasia and Asia. Distinctions are drawn between sites of vicarious remembering and those places where the theatre of war has been superseded by commemorative theatres of memory.
Planting the past: garden memorials as theatres of remembrance
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Planting the past: garden memorials as theatres of remembrance
Author: Gough, Paul
(19 December 2024)
Abstract
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