Moments of Silence

The world isn't always in motion. There are times when the chaos disappears, times that usually last only minutes. Pedestrians stand still, road traffic stops at the side of the road and everyone turns their attention to a single thought: remembrance of the dead. Out of respect for the lives of others, the living pause their own lives for a moment. gathers together a series of these moments to create a memorial to collective memory. In Central Park following the murder of John Lennon in 1980, in Stockholm after the murder of Olaf Palme in 1986, in Istanbul at the remembrance of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and in Japan after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in 2011, we witness the shared moments of silence that transcend culture and era. These moments serve the collective need for a shared memory of tragedies affecting humankind, so that loss and grief can be acknowledged and digested. But these scenes of almost ritualistic behavior of silent crowds also show that, when faced with adversity, we are indomitable – we have no choice but to carry on.