lit by gilded absence
Several hundred apertures represent absence, service and sacrifice, and particularly lives lost in Police service. The leaf-shaped apertures are gilded so that the south-facing memorial space is lit ‘by gilded absence’. The doorway leads to a garden, a place of peace but this threshold is also about the places that the Police go – as the rest of us flee. The apertures have, of course, yielded the same number of leaf-shaped plates. These will be inscribed and given to relatives of fallen police officers and staff. Thus there will be not one but hundreds of memorials. We hope that owning a ‘leaf’ will give families a direct connection to the memorial at the NMA – and a particularly strong reason to visit.
For: UK Police Memorial Trust.
With: Rathbone Partnership, SH Structures, Rambol.