Memory Wound Is Jonas Dahlberg’s Dramatic Memorial to Norwegian Terror Victims

A visually stunning memorial to victims of a Norwegian terrorist attack will dramatically bisect the Sørbråten peninsula, which looks out toward Utøya island,  the site of the July 22, 2011, shooting that left 69 dead. One of three planned memorial sites designed by 43-year-old Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg, the project, titled Memory Wound, creates a void in the landscape, nearly 11½ feet across, that serves as a chilling reminder of the loss of life suffered.

Dahlberg’s design also relocates the removed landmass to a second memorial site at the Government Quarter in Oslo, where a car bomb killed eight people the same day. Both crimes were the work of Anders Behring Breivik, currently serving a 21-year prison sentence. The sites will be inscribed with the victims’ names. The third planned memorial will be a nearby amphitheater constructed from trees from Sørbråten titled Time and Movement.

The winning proposal was selected from among 300 other entries, including one from 2004 Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller.