Project Memorial

What started out as another public gathering I had assigned myself to document has turned into an ongoing project at the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach.

I had planned to shoot a Holocaust Remembrance Day event April 15 at the monument just off Lincoln Road on South Beach. I was working that day, though, so by the time I showed up, the event had already started. I was faced with rows of people sitting in chairs and listening to a program of speakers at a podium, with the monument's signature giant metal hand rising in the background.

This wasn't what I had expected, and I didn't really feel like I could freely roam through the seated crowd, and without a long lens, I couldn't create individual portraits. From the back, I tried to get at least one shot that conveyed some information about the event taking place. I thought about Seamus Murphy's image, taken from the back, of men wearing top hats at a horse race, and I framed two men wearing yarmulkes with the monument's giant hand looming before them.

Since I wasn't going to be able to shoot the crowd pictures I had planned, I walked through the monument. It was my first visit, even though I've lived on South Beach for years. The monument centers around a giant metal hand that seems to rise from stone and water. It's only when you get closer that you realize the stricken, traumatized figures that are clinging to the metal arm supporting the giant hand. The curved path that leads you to these figures is hidden from the road, and it's not until you start walking the path do you realize that the curve is leading you down to these figures that representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

In lieu of photographs of the living people holding a memorial service, I tried to find lifelike elements in the monument to highlight. At certain angles, the main, central hand is clearly defined amid the lily pads in the monument's reflecting pool. As you follow the path around the pool, the hand becomes framed by green vines and blooming bougainvillea. At the heart of the monument, the tragic figures that climb up the central arm make eye contact with visitors.

On a second visit to the monument, I started exploring its scale. The anguished, distorted figures are roughly life-sized, and they reach out toward living visitors. At various angles, the figures frame the names of Holocaust victims etched into reflective marble walls.

I'll be repeating this assignment to explore the monument's scale, the materials used, the artist's intention, the monument's mood and symbolism, the way the figures' shadows show the passage of time, and other details sculpted into the memorial.
                                                                                                         JKay