The virtue of silence is undeniable. An eerie juxtaposition against a world where noise narrates the story of life, silence bears an intrinsic commemorating essence. And yet it lingers in death and stories of the fallen—“Let us observe a moment of silence in memory of the dearly departed.” How do we navigate these metaphoric and literal silences in Brooklyn; the silence that bears the stories that convey more when unspoken?
Dare to Remember: A Digital Memorial of Black Brooklyn accepts black existence with a bittersweet silence, acknowledging where silences have been produced and how it has narrated generations of black lives. It bottles up the pockets of silence black people experience in haunting, historical journeys through literature and landmarks, discontented and maybe even astounded from rarely happening upon black history in the built environment— statues, monuments, museums, street signs, neighborhood names, plaques, parks, etc. DTR elucidates how silence is undoubtedly interconnected with the black experience in the U.S. and our history of movement. It investigates the silence that remains ever-present in the past, present, and future black community of Brooklyn— in black women and black children and black men and black families and entire generations of black people who up and moved, yet remain engulfed in silence for what has been lost or what has been gained. It, like traditional and architecturally designed memorial services, invites the companionship of silence by welcoming its overpowering presence and centralizing memory through digital design.1
Visit the process blog for this project
1 A Space for Silence: Exhibiting and Materializing Silence through Technology