Philosophy
Murambi Technical School, Gicongoro.
One of the many places of memory in Rwanda.
27 000 people were massacred here. Some of the victims were identified by their clothes which are now conserved in memorial classrooms.
- the number (approximately a million);
- the space and volume represented by this;
- the importance of community participation in the construction of the monument;
- the importance of implicating Rwandan and foreign artists and intellectuals.
Firstly, because artistic expertise is essential in the creation of memorials and monuments and secondly, even if the notion seems out-dated, there is a moral duty of commitment. A genocide concerns the whole of humanity even if in this case the victims were Rwandan; - the difficulty of a "representation" of the event, as well as the ambiguity of its non-representation;
- other reconstruction priorities.
One million stones, each bearing the name or a distinctive sign of a victim, will be posed on a site of approximately one square kilometre
The construction of the memorial will in itself be a process of remembrance and of contemplation. The commemorative ceremony will consist in the posing of stones. Simple and solemn. Groups of peoples or even individuals will each take a stone, mark it with the name or with a distinctive sign identifying a victim and then place it in an ordered fashion, in series, after a stone previously placed. Each stone will have an individual identity, and yet will be an integral part of the overall memorial representing the totality of the victims.
The stones will be placed by members or friends of the victim's family in the course of a commemorative ceremony. But not exclusively. Any ither person who feels conceerned, Rwandese or not, will be able to place a stone in memory. This ceremony could go on for several weeks or even months. It could even be a long-term process. In the months or years following the institutional ceremonies in April, individuals could come and place a stone in memory. The garden will thus grow on its initial site even after its official inauguration.
Stone, by definition anonymous will be individualised by associating a distinctive sign in remembrance of a victim. This sign could be the name engraved, a photo, a letter etc. It could be permanent or ephemeral. The group of artists working on the project will give technical assistance to those who need it.
By its very nature, the Garden will be the biggest collective creation of modern times. It will be defiant in the face of those who try to forget the genocide.
