Trench, Water, and Memory: The Brumadinho Memorial by Gustavo Penna

THE ROUTE / THE REFLECTION
The path is cut through the terrain towards the breakout. A line in time and space that points to the place of the gigantic fracture. It is, therefore, an excavated rift, an indelible witness to what happened.
 
The Monument to the Fatal Victims is now transformed into a trajectory, between names and memories, under a suspended sculpture. The 230-meter course speaks both of the smallness of the human being in the face of the extraordinary consequences of the tragedy, and of the course of mourning, transforming into materiality a movement that is very intimate and carried out in very personal rhythms.
 
The trench morphology encourages introspection, as once you enter it, the only visible horizon is the framing at the end. His direct and impactful perspective induces the movement of the gaze, resonating the feeling of emptiness left by what happened.
 
On the side walls are the names of each of the departed people. They emerge, one by one, as you walk, like stories engraved on these side surfaces.

After going through all the names, the visitor approaches the suspended object that had been seen since the beginning, raised above the walls. Just before it, an incline invites you to the Espaço de Memórias, where you can also take a break and rest from the journey.

In this space of slanted walls, the inflections in the ceiling and the floor itself serve as a support for mapped projections, generating an impact experience. In addition to images and videos, the expographic project can include projections of letters and messages from family members, creating an immersive environment, honoring the lives of those people.

After leaving the space of memories, the visitor continues his visit under the suspended sculpture, a large head that feels and cries. From her geometric eyes, tears flow, our most human gesture when we are faced with the impact of loss.

These tears create a veil over the concrete walls, behind which are the remaining segments of the victims.  Then the water is directed by two lateral streams, which are led the rest of the way to the viewpoint suspended, at its end, where they form a surface of water that empties into a lake.

THE VIEWPOINT and THE LAKE / TRANSCENDENCE
At the viewpoint, at the end of this long route, you can see the landscape of the valley; a surface that has been hit and stained by mud. A contemplative space is offered here, floating on the lake below. It is a place of serenity, where the sound and presence of water speak of this movement of flowing.
 
The lake is located 3 meters below the viewpoint and extends along the contours. It can be accessed either through a side exit from the crevice, or through lace paths that come from the community, at the north end of the land.  Longilinear, it reflects the sky and harbors nostalgia. On the horizon, a new silence is born, the idea of continuity, which looks to the future with hope.

LANDSCAPING
The landscaping acts as a sewing element between the building and the landscape. The ipês, together with the winding paths, generate interactive, playful and free routes. Organic trails extend through them, so that each visitor can reconfigure their own walk. These paths also generate spaces for being, for socializing, for meditation and expand the freedom of connections through spaces.
 
Through them, one can visualize the white sculpture that cries, from a distance, as if it were embedded in the ground, and it is from them that its strongest presence manifests itself. It can be seen from here that its shape is a square, a shape that symbolizes the human being, unlike the circle, which is divine. We live with the circle daily, when we look at a full moon, the sun, a fruit, or when we throw a stone into the water.
 
We use this square to refer to “Homo faber”, the man who builds. The human being had to use the ability of reasoning and synthesis to invent the right angle, to codify forces of nature, such as the force of gravity, which is the vertical, and the horizontal forces that balance and make us walk with comfort. So when he invents the square, the human invents his being in the world, he invents the way to build his place.
 
This square is tilted, conveying an idea of pain, because what was presented as stable and reliable turned out to be brutally flawed. This form is the imbalance that generated the pain. Therefore, this sculpture can be read as a head that continually cries for lost lives.

At the same time, it is suspended, and its metallic surface is painted white, bringing within itself this dichotomy between weight and lightness, creating a counterpoint between the weight of death and the process of continuing the life of those who remain.

We proposed, at the northern end of the land, an element that demarcates the boundaries where the mud arrived. In this way, even if time and vegetation erase the boundaries, there will be evidence of the magnitude of the disaster. Our suggestion is that this element extends over the entire impact area.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The proposals described here are intended to be flexible suggestions and are initial launches of an attempt to work with such a delicate topic. In order for this memorial to be alive and active, we open ourselves to community participation in its constitution, so that it materializes as a space for belonging, identification, and collectivity.