page_title: 2016 Brussels bombings
section_title: Memorialisation
hierarchical_section_title: 2016 Brussels bombings / Memorialisation
caption_attribution_description: Rassemblement de personnes apres les attentats de Bruxelles.
context_page_description: On the morning of 22 March 2016, three coordinated suicide bombings occurred in Belgium: two at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one at Maalbeek metro station in central Brussels. Thirty-two civilians and three perpetrators were killed, and more than 300 people were injured. Another bomb was found during a search of the airport. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attacks.
  The perpetrators belonged to a terrorist cell which had been involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks. The Brussels bombings happened shortly after a series of police raids targeting the group. The bombings were the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium's history. The Belgian government declared three days of national mourning.
context_section_description: In the aftermath of the attacks, the population of Brussels reacted by creating spontaneous memorials as a societal reaction to what was perceived as a collective tragedy. In the hours following the attack, people started gathering at the city center near the former stock exchange (Place de la Bourse). Mourners wrote chalk messages on the pavement and buildings surrounding the square. Numerous messages and mementos, usually every-day objects such as mugs or hats, were left at the Bourse memorial. According to Ana Milosevic, a researcher at KU Leuven, societal tensions and the pressure for the answers about the causes and consequences of the attacks, were salient in the first days and weeks after the event. During the two months of the existence, the Bourse memorial was used as a site of contestation and negotiation of the meanings associated with the terrorist attacks.
  The Archives of City of Brussels were tasked by the mayor Yvan Mayeur and the city council to collect and document the societal reactions to the attacks. Over two months, the team of the archives documented the process of memorialization, also collecting some of the memorabilia left by the mourners.
  The first memorialization initiative included the creation of a semi-permanent (temporary) monument by the Moroccan community of Molenbeek – the part of the city from which several perpetrators of the Paris and Brussels attacks originated. Called "The Flame of Hope", the monument was placed at the main square of the municipality, however it did not attract significant societal or media attention.
  Following a public competition, a monument to the victims was unveiled on the first anniversary of the attacks on the pedestrianised section of rue de la Loi, between Schuman and the parc du Cinquantenaire. The monument, by Jean-Henri Compere, is called "Wounded But Still Standing in Front of the Inconceivable" and is constructed from two 20-metre (66 foot) long horizontal surfaces rising skywards.
  The Brussels-Capital Region also memorialised the attacks with a land-art work by Bas Smets, who planted 32 birches (one for each victim) in the Sonian Forest (Drève du Comte) as "a place of silence and meditation." The birches are connected by a circular structure and separated from the rest of the forest by a small round canal.
  A smaller memorial (a black plaque and a tree) was also raised by the municipality of Etterbeek in the Jardin Felix Hap.
  In the Maelbeek metro station, a commemorative mural was created by Benoît van Innis, who previously designed the metro station, and a list of the sixteen victimes was unveiled at the third commemorative anniversary next to the mural.
caption: Wall of messages at Maelbeek metro
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