Terror underneath' Reflective mosaic to honour victims of 2011 Breivik attacks

Fourteen years ago, the heart of Oslo was reconfigured by hate.

- Christian House

On 22 July 2011, the 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.

Now the city centre site is set 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 Breivik's attacks announced the winning design for a new national memorial to be unveiled in time for the 15th anniversary in 2026.

Called Upholding, the design is the work of the Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken. A monumental mosaic made with 500,000 stones, it will stand 15 metres wide and 12 metres high and depict one of Utøya's native wading birds, along with its reflection in the lake that surrounds the island.

For Faldbakken, a mosaic is the perfect symbol for a memorial site. "[In] a fragmented image, every part plays its role," he says. "In old literature, it's called painting for eternity. A mosaic is one of the only image formats that survives fire, earthquakes and floods."

The mosaic will be braced by a steel rig similar to one used to secure a Picasso mural that was damaged during the attack in Oslo. Faldbakken, who represented Norway at the Venice Biennale in 2005, explains that he was initially inspired by walking past the rig, which stood in the capital's government quarter for almost three years until the 50-year-old mural was moved into storage.