Bewilderment Memorial
Since 2008, the children of Moriah School in Wellington have been collecting one button for each child murdered in the Holocaust – 1.5 million buttons!
As they approached their target they contacted Acumen Design for assistance with the next stage of their project – to design a maze memorial sculpture and create promotional material to show the concept to the council, potential funders and to the community.
The children had been inspired by Vera Egermayer, a holocaust survivor. Her quote "In a time like the Holocaust it is like living in a pitch black room, but every time someone does something nice for you, it's like them coming in and lighting a candle. You need to focus on the light", was to inspire the design of the maze scuplture.
This was a multi-faceted project which the school were keen for the children to take part in as much as possible.
First, was a maths lesson to help the students discover the volume of 1.5 million buttons and how this would relate to the creation of a maze sculpture.
Working with an architect, Acumen produced a feasible 2D model of the maze. This was turned into a realistic working 3D model which would be the basis for creating still photos and a walk-through video sequence.
We created 2 large story boards and made a sample maze wall panel with buttons encased in a double glazed perspex window.
We wrote a video script and spent a day with the children recording a promotional video.
We want to thank Moriah School for trusting us with this special project. We wish them all the best for the council planning and fundraising processes.
"Acumen just came and solved our need - it was that simple. We had an idea for what we wanted and Acumen turned that into realistic 3D model which helps us to show everyone what we want to do."
Justine Hitchcock, Principal, Moriah School
YouTube viewer comments
"Beautiful project....amazing design and the children's work and devotion and creativity is wonderful. Thank you for making this video."
"The You Tube video is fantastic – so simply put but so powerful! I was truly touched and I already knew about it."
Learn more about the Bewilderment project