Call and Response: A Sonic Field of Memory Stage Two

BACKGROUND: Katrina Simon and Russell Rodrigo were part of a team selected as a finalist in the Canterbury Earthquake Memorial design competition for a memorial in Christchurch, New Zealand. The competition called for a memorial to commemorate the 185 people who lost their lives in the February 2011 earthquake. CONTRIBUTION: Simon and Rodrigo's proposal 'Call and Response' considers the memorial as a field for gathering and remembering, and an instrument that embodies the acts of calling and responding. The memorial consists of a pedestrian bridge across the Avon and carefully orchestrated spaces, marked and defined by deeply engraved stone walls. It is also a calibrated acoustic space, using the properties of sound reflection to create echoes within and across the memorial space. Designed as a place to call a lament to those who died and who can no longer call back, the memorial keeps the call alive as a literal and experiential reverberation. As a designer and visual artist working across architecture, landscape and fine art, this work is part of a range of ongoing research design and exhibition projects focusing on the radically altered conditions in post-earthquake Christchurch. SIGNIFICANCE: 'Call and Response' was one of the six shortlisted designs - out of 339 total submissions - publicly exhibited at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, as part of a critical engagement process. Bereaved families, the injured and survivors had the opportunity to comment on what they would like the Memorial to be, which contributed to the principles of the design brief and the selection of the site. Once the six shortlisted designs were selected, their feedback was once again sought. The exhibition of the shortlisted designs elicited more than 3,000 responses, which were considered by the Evaluation Panel. CERA (later replaced by Otakaro) - ran the competition in conjunction with Christchurch City Council, Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.