---
title: "Memorial"
description: "An artwork or structure created to keep the memory of a person, group, or event present in public life. Remembrance is its explicit purpose."
glossary: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary"
source: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/memorial"
---

# Memorial

> An artwork or structure created to keep the memory of a person, group, or event present in public life. Remembrance is its explicit purpose.

Glossary: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary  
Source: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/memorial

"Memorial" and "monument" overlap, but the center of gravity differs: a
memorial centers loss and remembrance, a monument celebrates achievement or
power, and a single work can be both. The distinction shows up in form:
Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982), a cut of polished black granite
holding fifty-eight thousand names, reset expectations for what remembrance
looks like, and contemporary memorials have trended ever since toward spaces
you enter rather than figures you look up at.

Memorials also demand the most careful community engagement in the field,
because the community isn't an audience: it's the bereaved.

Related terms: [Monument](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/monument), [Statue](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/statue), [Public art](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/public-art)

## Mentioned in

- [Ten Ideas for Your Next Public Art Tour](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/ten-ideas-for-your-next-public-art-tour)
- [Public art inventory field checklist](https://www.civiccollection.com/toolkit/public-art-inventory-field-checklist)
- [RFP language for procuring a public art guide](https://www.civiccollection.com/toolkit/rfp-language-for-procuring-a-public-art-guide)