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Empty chairs—there are many, more will come, and sooner or later … there will be only empty chairs.
In February 2015, I had the opportunity to visit Christchurch, New Zealand, a city still recovering from the devastating, 6.3 earthquake that took place in February 2011. On the first day, my guide led me to the temporary Memorial to the Victims of the Christchurch Earthquake (a memorial of which I was previously unaware): one hundred and eighty-five empty chairs—all similar as chairs, yet each different—painted ghostly white and arranged in rows (Fig. 1). The feeling of this memorial was unexpected; it reflects the ability of an individual empty chair to evoke a sense of the loss of a person and stimulate the associated experience of mourning. Similarly, a group of chairs presented as a memorial draws out a sense of shared loss, even for those, like me, who did not know any specific individuals killed in the Christchurch earthquake.
A small sign posted near the memorial notes, “The concept of The Empty Chair depicting the loss of someone has been used repeatedly across time and culture,” and goes on to list examples such as the watercolor of Dickens's empty chair, as well as the Oklahoma City Memorial, the memorial for the Jewish Ghetto in Krakow, and the empty chairs set up at Bryant Park on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Each of these examples is different, but they all draw upon the same motif. Together they present a fascinating case study that offers us the opportunity to explore the roles that objects and memorials may play in processes of grief and mourning.