“The Seed of Life” will commemorate the victims of the tragic 2019 Oregon District shooting  

After collecting public feedback for about a year, the 8/4 Memorial Steering Committee announced the artist team it selected to create a memorial in the Oregon District to commemorate the victims of the tragic mass shooting that occurred on August 4, 2019.  

The team includes:  

• Terry Welker, FAIA: architect/sculptor, team leader 
• Sierra Leone: poet, educator, community builder 
• Jes McMillan: artist, community builder, The Mosaic Institute  
• James Pate: artist, designer, community builder 

“We are place-makers and peacemakers. In order to create a place of peace and healing, we must first heal the place,” Welker said. “Rather simply placing an object in the existing setting, we’ve chosen to recreate the entire plaza within the existing site.” 

The installation, which the team has named “The Seed of Life,” will be located at a small plaza on the east end of the Oregon District, near where Fifth and Clay streets nearly intersect. The project has a budget of $200,000 for the completion of the memorial, which is expected to be complete by August 4, 2024. 

The project will feature several artistic elements. Leone will write a series of poems dedicated to the victims, first responders and survivors of the incident. Leone will interview community members to listen as they share how they were affected by the incident and what remembrance and healing means to them. “The poem will blossom from a combination of what she hears and her own experiences and impressions of our community. Phrases and words from the poems will be embedded in the mosaic and bench designs,” Welker said.     

McMillan will create the primary design element of the memorial — a large mosaic. Connecting the existing concrete and brick ground, the curved bench and planter, and the sidewalk edge of the plaza, the mosaic will feature a radial geometry in the shape of a seed.  

Welker and Pate will create a grouping of nine 7-to-9-foot-tall petal or leaf forms in stainless steel. The nine forms, signifying the nine victims, may be seen as emerging from the “seeds” centered in the mosaic. Using the existing concrete wall, the team will add a backrest to create a 36-foot-wide curved, comfortable seating area. The backrest will include components of the mosaic and the poem. The bench itself will be clad with a teak seating surface.  

The 8/4 Memorial Steering Committee offered several opportunities for the community to share feedback, including a Community Resiliency Forum; a survey to victims, survivors and first responders; and a survey to the general public. The committee also held several small group discussions to learn more about how those most closely affected by the incident would like from the memorial. All this input was weighed against the submitted designs.  

“Understanding that the site is a well-established part of the District, we seek to balance the social and cultural conditions of the space with the need to design a quiet place of reflection,” Welker said. “These contrasting conditions can and should coexist as its daily function changes with time of day and night, and the days of the week over the course of the year.”