Kostas Arvanitis (University of Manchester)
From the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings (1993 and 1995, respectively) to the terrorist attacks in Orlando (2016), Manchester (2017), and Christchurch (2019), as well as the disasters of the Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the Black Saturday bushfires in Australia (2009), these and numerous other instances of intensive, collective trauma around the world have led to large-scale spontaneous memorials. Although labelled “spontaneous”, they have now become an expected expression of public grief and memorialisation. Despite the increasing frequency of spontaneous memorialisation around the world, little attention has been paid to their role in channelling people’s collective trauma and shaping a society’s collective memory. Instead, most related research focuses on the debates and processes of official memorials in the aftermath of large-scale traumatic events, rather than on the grassroots memorials, which are considered ephemeral and temporary. However, in many cases those spontaneous memorials are collected, documented and digitised by museums and other memory organisations. This paper will discuss the role, value and impact of collections of spontaneous memorials in shaping personal and collective memories of the associated events and contributing to post-event individual and societal recovery.