The moving wall : commemorative healing and spatiality in the commemoration of the Vietnam War

Abstract

In 1984, Vietnam War veteran John Devitt and volunteers from the Vietnam Combat Veterans Ltd. of San Jose, California, debuted a half-size traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Named “the Moving Wall,” the replica was conceived as an attempt to bring the experience of the memorial wall to those in the United States who could not make the trip to Washington. Offering a temporary simulation of the VVM experience in communities throughout the country, the Moving Wall raises a number of questions regarding issues of authenticity, simulation, and the relationship between commemoration and space. The spatiality of the Moving Wall facilitated transcendence beyond simple replication, creating something unique through socially granted authenticity, the organic evolution of commemorative rituals, and vernacular negotiations and expressions of memory.