Layout & Options for Hospital Memorial

I’ve started work on a big salmon sculpture—but I have so many extra ideas/options alongside it I need to compile it somewhere.

SALMON

• Finish:

  • 9 light sources; the big salmon has 9 holes to represent 9 lives (the amount of lives a single organ donor can affect), and each 9 small fish scattered around the park have 1 light source to represent that. The big salmon has holes whilst the small fish have a protruding, lit-up marble (could also be a hole instead).

    • Pros: looks nice, light feels more “hopeful” to me

    • Cons: may be expensive, hard to maintain

  • Same idea of 9-to-1, but instead of light sources it’s different material; glass inserts/marbles/colored metal (ie bronze&aluminium) instead of light

    • Pros: cheaper

    • Cons: not as cool

  • With either of these options comes the problem of whether to make different colored metals. I think, to make it simple, it should all be aluminum, but then what color should it all be? I’d like it to be all white, cus that would look nice, but that seems against the request of it being inclusive; maybe white base with blushes of color pastelly colors, differing from fish to fish.

• Base:

  • Stick: metal that sticks right into the ground, or something. Flowing lines of metal that imitate water/streams underneath the fish without being bulky or distracting from the fish.

    • Pros: maybe not very interesting, but maybe that’s the point

    • Cons: ?

  • Nature: put a rod to hold up the sculptures and drill a hole into rocks/logs/etc.; appears as if the fish are kind of part of the nature of the space

    • Pros: would look cool and fit into the space

    • Cons: $$$$$$$, how would you even do this?

PATHWAY

There may not even be enough resources to add this to the idea, and I know nothing about making paths atm, but I might be able to guess this could take up the amount of the budget alone, but I think the space really needs one, honestly. That was my first thought walking into it. It could just be the 10 salmon, or just the 1 salmon, or just the pathway, or 1 salmon and 1 pathway, or all the 10 salmon & pathway, and so on…

But the choices for the pathway are this: have the pathway, and if so:

• Changing memorial: each scale (each brick is scale-shaped to keep up with the fish theme; which is why I say we might not want the salmon at all) is removable, like those donation bricks along certain buildings with names on them. For every organ donator family at the hospital, there could be an option to create a design (probably encased in resin; don’t think it matters that it’s not eco-friendly as it’s a permanent installation) within the scale. The scale would be taken out, flipped over (one side would be solid, the other hollow; it’d be easier to visualize than explain), and then either a special small item or a special design chosen by the family would become part of the pathway. Could be anonymous, as the family would be able to recognize it.

  • Pros: nice

  • Cons: maintenance