Memorials from the perspective of experience: A comparison of Spain’s Valley of the Fallen to contemporary counter-memorials

Abstract

Memorials are cultural artifacts constructed to mediate memory for a shared past. But as such, they require people’s active engagement with them, which can generate divergent experiences and interpretations. The present study compares how different memorial forms both enable and constrain people’s relating to the sites and what they are meant to represent. The comparison hinges on the difference between traditional memorials (imposing, vertical, and focused on heroes) and counter-memorials (engaging, horizontal, and focused on victims). The Valley of the Fallen is in central focus as a prime example of a traditional memory, which is currently in the process of being re-signified. Our study compares participants’ experience of this site with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the National 9/11 Memorial (both celebrated counter-memorials), using an innovative method combining interviews and a subjective camera that captures participants’ ongoing experience from the first-person perspective. Results show a manifold of ways in which people appropriate and make sense of memorials through different associations and personal memories while moving through them.