Anti-Memorial for Heroin Overdose Victims
Project Type:
2) landscape design
Project Mission/Goal:
1) improve the human spirit
Project Description: This project was a public event that sought to humanise Victoria’s three hundred and thirty-one overdose deaths in 2000. The Memorial commemorated a group of people whose loss is not usually mourned in the public realm. It was constructed in St Kilda’s politically contested public landscapes as part of the Melbourne Festival in October 2002. The Anti-Memorial consisted of three design insertions into the streetscape: a floral tribute, a narrative and a memorial collection. Poppies, stencilled text and resin plaques formed a memorial along St Kilda’s streets. The work was sited within three socially complex streetscapes in St Kilda: intravenous drug users, sex workers and social support services occupy the Grey Street corridor; the Fitzroy Street commercial end is frequented by a broad demographic of consumers of the strip shopping and dining precinct; while tourists, families and shoppers populate the Sunday craft market on the Lower Esplanade. The Anti-Memorial confronted each group, asking them to reconsider how they perceived intravenous drug users. My design work here questions whom we select as worthy of memorials. The Anti-Memorial to Heroin Overdose Victims contested perceptions of intravenous drug users as being unworthy of commemoration, positioning them instead as valued people who are sorely missed within their communities.
Video(s):
Links and Captions:
http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?apply=scholars&webpage=default...
www.aila.org.au/profiles/ware/folio.pdf
Project Details:
LOCATION: St. Kilda, Victoria, Australia
DATE: 2002
END USER: General public, Needle Exchange, the Prostitute Collective, Salvation Army
CLIENT: Needle Exchange, the City of Port Phillip, the Melbourne Festival
DESIGNER: SueAnne Ware
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS: Adrian Drew, Yvette Romanin
INSTALLATION: Blake Farmar–Bowers, Matt York, Harley Blacklaw
FUNDING: The Melbourne Festival
COST: $30000 (Australian) /$31749 USD
AREA: 10 km/6.2 mi
Nominated by Clarissa Brendler
