Melting Traces
Recall Project Competition
Melting Traces was developed for the European research project REcall: European Conflict Archaeological Landscape Reappropriation. The proposal addressed the memory of what is known as the Rastrellamento del Quadraro—the mass arrest and deportation of approximately 1,000 men from the Roman neighborhood of Quadraro by Nazi forces in April 1944.
Drawing on field research, interviews with local residents, and an analysis of existing commemorative practices, the project explored how collective memory can be passed on to new generations and to a neighborhood whose population continues to change, beyond conventional monuments.
The proposal involved placing, for a single night throughout Quadraro, 1,000 transparent blocks of ice containing everyday objects collected in the neighborhood. As the ice gradually melted, the objects would emerge and remain visible while the blocks disappeared.
The melting process makes a process visible, thus evoking both the sudden disappearance of approximately 1,000 residents in 1944 and the gradual fading of collective memory. Rather than proposing a permanent monument, “Melting Traces” was conceived as a temporary event integrated into the neighborhood’s daily life.
