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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Christian House

‘That serene Scandinavian facade, yet there’s terror underneath’: artist unveils design for Norwegian national memorial to 22 July attacks

‘A fragmented image, painting for eternity’ … a model showing the design and scale of Upholding by Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken.
‘A fragmented image, painting for eternity’ … a model showing the design and scale of Upholding by Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken. Photograph: Vegard Kleven

Fourteen years ago, the heart of Oslo was reconfigured by hate. On 22 July 2011, Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb outside the office of the then prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, killing eight people and damaging surrounding buildings, before murdering a further 69 people on the nearby island of Utøya.

But now the same site is to be reconfigured by hope. Last week, after a multi-round, three-year-long selection process, a jury of curators, politicians, artists and representatives of the victims and survivors of the attacks announced the winning design for a new Norwegian national memorial to be unveiled in time for the 15th anniversary in 2026.

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