Never Forget. And we haven’t. When it comes to honoring the victims of 9/11 we always rise to the occasion as we did earlier this week. However, when it comes to honoring the victims of COVID-19 we are no where to be found. We haven’t even had so much as a collective moment of silence yet despite the fact that nearly 200,000 people have died in America so far, the equivalent of 9/11 happening 38 times over.
Thankfully my brethren in Uruguay are picking up the slack, creating the world’s first COVID-19 memorial to honor the victims of this and all other pandemics, while also reminding mankind of the need for establishing a relationship with nature. After all, it may very well be mankind’s destructive habits and the onset of Climate Change that caused this pandemic in the first place.
Fast Company explains:
“As of early September, more than 900,000 people have died around the world because of COVID-19. Designers are already working on how to remember them: A plan for a massive new monument would honor the victims, along with everyone else who has been affected by other pandemics throughout history.
Sitting on the coastline of Montevideo, Uruguay, the memorial will lead visitors down a long pedestrian path to a spot where the sounds and sights of urban life fade away. In the middle of a circular steel platform, 40 meters in diameter, there’s an open space where it will be possible to look down at the open ocean below.
The monument, called the World Memorial to the Pandemic, is not solely about COVID-19 and other pandemics, but about the larger idea of the human relationship with nature. ‘For us, it is very important that visitors understand their relationship with nature,’ says Martín Gómez Platero, director and lead architect of Gómez Platero, the Montevideo-based firm that created the designs for the memorial. ‘That is why the center of the memorial is not a human being, but a great void where nature emerges so that we never forget that the center of our ecosystem is nature and that we are subordinate to it.’
As many as 300 visitors will be able to stand on the platform—while staying six feet apart—and think about those they’ve lost and nature itself. ‘The circular geometry of the memorial summarizes the concept of unity and community and gives us a scale of measurement of the force of the sea, a place of shelter, and exposure to the wind,’ Gómez Platero says. ‘The form is only interrupted by the crack that gives entry to the place, a break or rupture that reminds us of a singular, global event.'”
As great as this idea is, we shouldn’t wait for its completion to start contemplating the magnitude of what is happening or for understanding how important it is to honor nature. Both of those things should go without saying. But sadly, that has yet to happen. We would be wise to remember to do both. Instead of never forgetting, let’s start remembering. All that we’ve lost and all that we stand to lose.
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