The Australian Government has unveiled the winning design for the National Memorial for Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, to be built in the nation's capital Canberra.

The winning proposal by architects Jessica Spresser and Peter Besley comprises a series of catenary arches made of cast glass with a meandering path encircling a meadow of perennial grasses and wildflowers.

“The memorial design seeks to hold in balance an acknowledgement of strength and vitality on the one hand, and recognition of trauma and loss on the other,” said the architects. “The individual pieces of cast glass carry immense loads yet together create forms of exceptional grace and lightness, representing both fragility and great resilience.”

A national memorial for victims of child sexual abuse was one of the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Memorial has four main components: a raised Walking Path, a series of glass Catenary Curves, a covered Gathering Place and a Landscape Centre. The Walking Path is an irregular landscape path which leads people around the site in a continuous loop, presenting a process and capturing a landscape centre of perennial grasses and wildflowers.

Along the Walking Path are positioned tall luminous freestanding Catenary Curves made of cast blocks of solid recycled glass. Visitors pass through the curves as they progress along the Walking Path. A circular Gathering Place for events and quiet reflection is accessed directly via the Memorial entry as well as by informal pathways weaving through the Landscape Centre.

The entry path aligns with the existing Axis Path to the National Museum. The canopy above the Gathering Place is made of threaded glass tubes which together form the shape of a shallow inverted dome, a counterpoint to the springing nature of the Catenary Curves.

The Memorial signifies transparency and truth. It has no hidden chambers, walls or dark corners.

With respect to First Nations principles, the Memorial builds with and celebrates Country. One moves through and around the Memorial, having one’s own experience, not standing still before a singular object in the manner of an institutional edifice. The underlying message is one of growth and progression, not stasis or a fixed state.

“We are honoured that our scheme has been selected from such a strong field of entries. We hope that its presence will help to destigmatise child sexual abuse, as well as being a place of vitality and reflection,” says Jessica Spresser.

Peter Besley says that “We want the memorial to have a haunting beauty, to give emotional force to its purpose of institutional reform.”

Images: Supplied

Branko Miletic

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