Nele Azevedo’s “Minimum Monument” Has Massive Impact

Since 2005, Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo has been creating installation works in public spaces involving 20 centimeter tall human figures that are left to melt in the sun. These installations comprise the Minimum Monument project. While Azevedo began her exploration in time-based sculpture with just one or two figures during her Master’s work, the project soon expanded in number and scope.

Minimum Monument in Birmingham, UK to commemorate WWI victims (Credit: boredpanda.com)

Minimum Monument has appeared in Chamberlain Square in Birmingham, U.K. as 5,000 figures commemorating both the English soldiers and civilians killed during World War I. The installation also appeared in Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, Germany, where it was intended as a comment on global warming. These tiny “melting men” have also appeared in public spaces in Italy, Norway, Cuba, Brazil, Ireland and Japan, sparking conversations on topics such as the meaning and function of memorials, ephemerality, and the preciousness of life. Indeed, we might read our own faces onto one of the many melting figures united in their shared fate.

Minimum Monument in Belfast, Ireland to commemorate Titanic victims
(Credit: titien.net)

While traditional monuments are often made of stone and are meant to withstand climate and the ravages of time, Azevedo offers us a chance to reconsider memory as something that is alive in each moment, continually enlivened with each recollection, and carried in living bodies rather than the inert world. The temporality of the ice figures recalls our personal and collective myths, calling us into an urgent awareness of the past’s influence upon our present reality. In the instance of the Birmingham and Belfast monuments, the historic disasters of human error they commemorate are brought roaring into the present by the deep emotions they still evoke. By bearing witness to the grief of those who still feel the repercussions of these historic events, we can all be humbled for a moment at the way our actions have profound effects upon one another, often beyond the scope of our awareness. We remember that the past lives in us and through us, and that we are the transformers of our destiny.

Brazilian-born artist Néle Azevedo
(Credit:forensicgenealogy.info)

In the “Melting Men” installation commenting on global warming, we are called to mourn our collective failure, which is actively contributing to changing lifestyles because of the earth-harming practices of ecological manipulation and resource extraction. The memorial functions as a mirror in which we see our present-day selves reflected by the past. Witnessing the past dissolving like ice figures in the sun calls us to action going forward, tasked not simply with carrying our memories, but with becoming transformed by them, and having our choices influenced by this new perspective.

Grief is always transformative. But unlike the dark night of the soul to which it is often likened, it functions like the sun’s heat to burn away anything which does not last, and reminds us of what truly can withstand the test of time.