The Linen Memorial[1], conceived and created in 2001 by sculptor Dr Lycia Danielle Trouton[2] and sponsored by Canada Council of the Arts as an ongoing site conscious memorial installation which seeks to narrate the almost 4,000 deaths which took place during the fraught period in contemporary Northern Ireland, called 'The Troubles'. It is an alternative history which can be understood as a counter-monument: a non-hierarchical list of names of those killed; it creates a funerary record of the toll of human lives, seeking to pick, unpick and re thread a sense of the fragile, recuperative work involved in a community emerging from conflict.
The Linen Memorial is made from almost 400 Irish linen handkerchiefs listing almost 4000 names of those killed; it is an evolving installation that has taken many forms within the genres of public art, textile arts, performance and large-scale site-conscious, sculpture. The Memorial was conceived in 1999 after the artist exhibited at The Waterworks, Antrim Road, North Belfast in a 'site-interventionist' group sculpture show, called Seattle-Belfast Horsehead International. Subsequently, Lycia did research into the iconic Northern Ireland fabric of linen, at The Linen Museum[3], Lisburn[4] and she also toured a dis-used flax scutching mill in the Northern Ireland countryside.
The Memorial was first unveiled on September 7, 2001 in Washington state, USA, as part of an ecumenical project with the names list on printed handkerchiefs and a 'coffin' represented in compressed peat moss (Irish bog oak). The 2002 in Australia showing on The Day of the Dead included an interdisciplinary dimension in the memorial, featuring an original sonic-scape by Thomas Fitzgerald (composer)[5], which incorporated Kevin McFadden's Gaelic poetry, with oration by Anthony Stamboulieh[6], and a performance with choreography by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, OAM, and her Mirramu Dance Company[7]. In 2004, the domestic textile arts element was introduced with hand-embroidery overtop the printed names on the Irish linen handkerchiefs. By 2009, over two hundred handkerchiefs have been sewn by 36 women and 1 man around the world. The hand embroidery (white-on-white) continues slowly day-by-day; one hour per name.
The Linen Memorial was initially exhibited in Northern Ireland at the Corrymeela Community[8] Centre for Peace and Reconciliation on June 21, 2007 and 2008, in recognition of the first Day of Private Reflection [9]; both showings included a names reading, and in 2008, persons who so wished could pin a memento or token of remembrance, beside a name on a handkerchief. The Linen Memorial will be a feature at the Flax and Linen Biennale in Quebec in 2011, a USA tour is proposed. The memorial has also been blessed and photographed in Protestant and Catholic churches, N. America, including at the Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace[10], Vancouver.