By Robert Simpson
Spontaneous memorials are mourning practices that emerge after tragic events, such as mass violent attacks and natural disasters. From the Hillsborough Disaster (1989), the Oklahoma City bombing (1995) and September 11th attacks (2001), to the attacks in Paris (2015), Brussels (2016), Manchester (2017), Christchurch (2019) and, more recently, Southport (2024) – the formation of these large-scale, public memorial sites is not a new phenomenon.
Often consisting of thousands of flowers, candles, cards, notes, flags, balloons, religious icons, and many other objects, spontaneous memorials have now become an expected expression of public grief and commemoration, and are typically collected by museums or other cultural organisations.
In this post, I explore how spontaneous memorial sites can offer more than just condolence, by arguing that they are important public spaces created temporarily for community reconstitution and meaning making, where people can come together to reassert their sense of identity and belonging over places affected by unexpected violence and terrorism.
Drawing on methods from a branch of social semiotics called multimodal discourse analysis, my work investigates the language, content, design, and construction of memorial objects left at sites across Manchester city centre after the Manchester Arena Bombing in May 2017 – a deadly attack that claimed the lives of 23 people (including the bomber).
Positioning these objects – which are currently archived by the Manchester Together Archive – as important, artefactual evidence of publicly shared grief, I am interested in what they reveal about how people process and exhibit notions of trauma and transform it into social solidarity.
My findings suggests that these richly layered multimodal objects help position spontaneous memorial sites as important performative spaces, where the act of mourning can become an act of social and political expression; that these objects reflect a shared desire to not only grieve, but to connect and come together – to transform trauma into solidarity.
When a terrorist attack occurs, its effects are felt pluralistically across society. With this in mind, spontaneous memorials can be understood as pluralistic responses to pluralistic attacks, where members of the public (whether directly or indirectly affected) can participate in the process of recovery by taking part in and contributing to the process of memorialisation, and by affiliating with other groups and community members to bolster support and solidarity. This coagulation of individuals and groups gathering to connect, share, and leave memorial gifts helps assert, as Carmen Ortiz observes, ‘the presence of the victims as part of a collective “we” (wherein) anonymous citizens form a kind of imaginary extended family’ (2013, 66).
The notion of family features frequently in the language used in notes and messages housed in the archive. This itself is not surprising, given how the attack targeted a concert with a markedly young fan base, who were either in attendance with friends and relatives or being collected by family members in the foyer of the Arena. But it could also be argued that the willingness and readiness of support that came from within the community after the attack helped frame the public mood and allowed the idea of family to expand beyond the victims themselves, to incorporate the people who make up Manchester. In many ways, such extensive acts of support and togetherness widened the scope of who was affected by the attack, to incorporate a host of people beyond the victims and bereaved family members, to anyone who found themselves touched by the events of that evening (or indeed, the days that followed).
This is a factor frequently registered in the language of the messages housed in the archive. For example, one reads:
‘To everyone affected by the terrible event in Manchester.’
This message combines the breadth of impact alongside the notion of shared pain and loss. For instance, the author refers to the ‘terrible event in Manchester’ as a more general, communal setting, as opposed to the more specific location of Manchester Arena. An observation which is further strengthened in the following lines by the sentiments ‘one hurt – hurts all’ and ‘united in grief’ – both of which express interconnectedness and shared loss. Additionally, the notion of collective pain is conveyed both linguistically and graphologically, in that the word ‘everyone’ is underscored for added emphasis. In doing so, the author draws on a second (more visual) semantic resource, giving added weight and focus to the intended meanings of togetherness, attachment, and unity.
Throughout the MTA, there are many messages that convey similar themes. For example, another card reads:
‘May God give all the families, friends, relatives, all people affected, the strength to get through this.’
And another is marked with an address to ‘all who are suffering’. Both examples here capture the centricity of family, whilst fostering a sense of social plurality that extends beyond the notion of immediate family grief, to acknowledge a broader, shared, communal grief; one that positions community itself as family.
The message that best exemplifies this point can be found in a card left at St. Ann’s Square, in Manchester city centre.
On the surface, this item is a typical condolence card. Scattered across the front, are seven abstract shapes in muted colours of pink, green and grey. Given their droplet-like shape, these are meant to represent teardrops, to convey condolence and sympathy for the bereaved. This is emphasised further by the printed message, which fills the space between the teardrops and reads:
‘WITH Sympathy / / TO you AND your family / / HEARTS GO OUT TO YOU / AT THIS SAD TIME.’
However, before explaining how this card has been modified, it is worth noting that this printed message is in many ways archetypal of more traditional forms of bereavement codes. The address of this message is targeted directly to the bereaved (the ‘you’) and their family (the ‘your’), which, to compound their linearity, are italicised to accentuate the intended recipient of sympathy. This provides little room for an openly shared experience of grief; only an expression of sympathy and an acknowledgement that this is a ‘sad time.’ It presumes (as traditional Western mourning codes often do) that grief is a private and closed-off experience (Gordon, 2014). Like the muted colours of the teardrops, this seems somehow tentative, distant, and impersonal. It hands condolence over prosaically, avoiding possession – note the absence of possessive pronouns before ‘HEARTS.’ This card is restricted by traditional codes of bereavement, where the conveyance of condolence is presented as one-dimensional and one-way; as opposed to two-way, shared, and interactive (Gordon, 2014).
It is clear, however, that the author of this card also registered the limitations of these traditional codes. An admission that can be seen in the small (yet semantically significant) alterations made to the cover message. Here, the author has scored through the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ with black ink and in their place submitted (directly above the original print) the plural pronoun ‘us’ and the possessive determiner ‘our,’ so that the message now reads: ‘to us and our family.’ The changes here are vast, as they shift the tone and meaning of this message. Now, the expression of condolence is broad and inclusive; felt pluralistically between both parties. It identifies personal grief, whilst acknowledging a collective and communally shared experience. More importantly, it helps foster this sense of plurality by positioning community as family. In addition to this, the use of the determiner ‘our’ goes beyond simply advocating togetherness and solidarity, to convey a sense of shared ownership and possession over place. This assertion acts as an acknowledgement that among the victims of this attack there is a community; one who must come together and affiliate in order to reclaim their home.
As the Sociologist, Randall Collins argues, external threats and conflicts, such as acts of terrorism and mass violence, often work to intensify internal group cohesion (2004). Through ritualistic behaviours and interactions, such as bodily co-presence and (what Collins describes as) rhythmic coordination, people bind themselves together at a micro level to create a sense of emotional energy – or rather, feelings that can strengthen social bonds through shared participation and affiliation (2004).
Such ideas are also evident in my current example, and if we continue inside the card, we can see how the message positions the attack as an ‘atrocious / act against my fellow Mancunians.’ And again, ‘my heart bleeds for the members / of my Manchester family who did / not come home on Monday night.’ The focus here positions community as a form of family unit; that the victims who lost their lives in the attack were not just members of a society, but of a network of interconnected lives. This is seen elsewhere too, as the author ends with a broad and inclusive call for community resilience and solidarity with: ‘stay strong and true my / brothers and sisters of / Manchester.’ Again, we find references to language connected with the notion of family, alongside affirmations for collective strength to prevail over the violence of terrorism.
This message also makes frequent and repeated use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ to amplify the sense of personal possession and ownership. At one point, for instance, the word ‘my’ is underscored twice to draw further attention to the author’s bond and sense of connection to place. For this participant, Manchester is home. A notion that is itself also connected to the idea of family.
Families need a place to call home. Not only does this further secure the sense of community as family but draws attention to the widespread impact that terrorism can have on people’s perception of place (i.e. how safe and secure they feel in their communities) and how, in the wake of an attack, the need to reclaim encroached spaces is pivotal to the process of recovery. This brings to mind the notion of community resilience as a key factor in maintaining not just continued bonds with the dead but continued bonds with physical places. Indeed, it is the sudden violation of place that often stands out as a reoccurring motif in the language and address of written messages left at spontaneous memorials. Of the examples left in Manchester, it is evident that while a significant number of messages grieve the loss of life, many focus directly on place, positioning Manchester itself as one of the victims. One message simply reads: ‘RIP Manchester/ WE STAND TOGETHER;’ while another reads: ‘For Manchester/ With love’.
This acknowledgement of connection to place suggests two things: firstly, that people who identify strongly with a place feel a deep sense of personal violation when it is threatened, attacked or wounded; and secondly, that the mechanisms of social cohesivity (often witnessed at spontaneous memorials) appear to extend beyond sociocultural sameness to also include geographic (place) ties, so that the sensation of place-violation can bring communities together in spite of cultural, social, religious, or political differences.
The notion of place-identity and home is important. So much so, that when a terrorist attack occurs, it reminds people that home is never just the houses we return to at the end of the day, but that the streets we walk down; the schools our children attend, the public transport we use; the places we depend on for work or shopping or relaxation, as well as the abundance of social interactions these invite, are all part of our sense of belonging; standing as extensions of our home. These extensions play a crucial part in the way we experience and understand our social lives.
Thus, when the places people identify with are compromised and attacked, it can alter their perceptions about how safe and secure they feel about their immediate and extended home, causing them to reassess their obligations and ties to both people and place (Jackson and Usher, 2015). This may be why, in the wake of an attack, the notes and messages left at memorials so frequently blend declarations of personal and shared injury; that we feel attacked (even with no real connection to the event itself) because our personal lives are so intimately tied to the places we inhabit and to the people we share these places with (Ingold, 2011; Davies, 2015).
Housed in the MTA, one message reads:
‘TO THE CITY OF MANCHESTER. / WE ARE ITALIANS, BUT WE ARE SO LUCKY TO / CALL MANCHESTER OUR HOME. / WE COULDN’T BE MORE PROUD. / TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG.’
The address here is to the ‘city of Manchester’ itself, as the author expresses gratitude for being able to call the city her home. The language used, both on the card and the envelope, is affiliative and positive; it draws on the strength of the people of Manchester and calls for unity. There is a real sense of pride and love for the city, which not only comes through in the language but visually too through the repeated use of ideogrammatic love heart signs, which help to secure the underlining meaning of this message – love and pride.
To draw to a conclusion, the examples explored here show how expressions of solidarity at spontaneous memorials often seek to reaffirm not only people’s social or personal bonds and obligations, but people’s attachment to place. Such levels of geographical affiliation draw on ‘the affective bond between people and place’; that when a specific location is affected by acts of terrorism, it is not simply the loss of human life that is grieved, but the attack upon the place itself (1974, 4).
Thus, acts of remembrance at spontaneous memorials often stand not just as a reminder of the lives lost, but as a communal acknowledgement of place-violation, wherein individuals and groups congregate as a community to close an open, social wound and to reclaim encroached spaces, by asserting their presence as a network of individuals and groups whose collective efforts can challenge the threat of terrorism (Jonsson and Walter, 2017).
Bibliography
Collins, R. 2004. ‘Rituals of Solidarity and Security in the Wake of Terrorist Attack’ in Sociological Theory, 22:1, American Sociological Association: Washington, DC, pp. 53-87.
Davies, D. 2015. Mors Britannica: Life Style and Death Style in Britain Today. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gordon, A. 2014. ‘The New Semiotics of Death’ in The Association for Qualitative Research (online) https://www.aqr.org.uk/a/20140301-newsemiotics
Ingold, T. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Jackson, Debra and Usher, Kim. 2015. ‘Understanding expressions of public grief: ‘mourning sickness,’ ‘grief-lite,’ or something more?’ in International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 24, Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, pp. 93-94
Jonsson, A and Walter, T. 2017. ‘Continuing bonds and place,’ in Death Studies, 41:7, Routledge, pp. 406-415
Ortiz, Carmen. 2013. ‘Pictures That Save, Pictures That Soothe: Photographs at the Grassroots Memorials to the Victims of the March 11, 2004 Madrid Bombings’, in Visual Anthropology Review, 29:1, The American Anthropological Association, pp. 57- 71
Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
No responses yet