Located along the Loire riverfront in the center of the city of Nantes, this memorial, designed by Wodiczko + Bonder, is a metaphorical and emotional evocation of the struggle for the abolition of slavery. With the aim of being above all historic, the project still continues into the present and proposes a physical transformation and symbolic reinforcement of 350 meters of the coast of the Loire along Quai de la Fosse. This working memorial includes the adaptation of a pre-existing underground residual space, a product of the construction of the Loire embankments and port during the XVIII, XIX, and XX Centuries. It provides space and means for remembering and thinking about slavery and the slave trade; commemorating resistance and the abolitionist struggle; celebrating the historic act of abolition; and for bringing the visitor closer to the continuing struggle against present-day forms of slavery. More images and architects’ description after the break.
By shedding light over difficult pasts and presents, both in Nantes and the world, and as an ethico-political, urban, artistic, landscape and architectural project, this new public space, and urban landscape, hopes to become an agent and catalyst for transformative action, human rights activism, and civic engagement. Articulating ideas for this Memorial and working on this public space in Nantes required facing a multitude of complex artistic, design, architectural, historical, ethical and social questions: Could this project work through difficult memories, past and present injustices, collective traumas, while inviting the public to engage in difficult and necessary transformative, pedagogic, healing and re-constructive work? Could we envision this as a site-specific memorial that -while working on the legacies of Slavery and the Slave Trade and the abolitionist movement- will frame collective and spontaneous acts of remembrance? Could such a Memorial contribute to envision a better world, by inviting and demanding from visitors to actively engage in continuing the abolitionist struggle towards a world free of slaves and oppression?
