About Dark Elegy

A memorial depicting the face of terrorism,

A healing sculpture garden for the world

When on December 21, 1988, my first born son, Alexander, age 21, was brutally murdered aboard Pan Am 103 in the stormy night skies over the Scottish village of Lockerbie, my most meaningful life's work began. I had been working as a sculptor for many years, but this began a whole new phase in my creative life. Initially I portrayed myself, not only at that moment of hearing the heartbreaking news, but also in varying positions of grief, rage and hopelessness. Soon other mothers and widows asked to participate; each one having lost loved ones on this fateful flight.

There are 75 larger than life size pieces, each portraying a mother or wife at that moment when they first heard the awful news of the death of their loved one to that terrorist act. At present these figures are displayed to form a circle of approximately 65 feet in diameter, but they can be site-specific and be arranged in many different configurations.

What makes this memorial so unique, even more so than the sheer number of pieces or the personal and individual loss each mother portrays, is the fact that it was created by one of those affected rather than by an outsider portraying someone else's tragedy. I am one of the depicted figures.

My dream is to donate this memorial to the public and to see it placed on a prominent site that can be visited by as many people from as many nations as possible.

Once an acceptable site is found and agreed upon, we would personally finance the casting of each figure in bronze to assure their longevity. My husband and I feel that this is the most appropriate use for the large sum of money paid to us by the Libyan government of Colonel Gadhafi.

The terrorist attack on Pan Am 103 killed 270 innocent people and was, at the time, the largest and surely the most heinous such attack on American civilians. Little did we know that this would only be the beginning leading up to the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington killing almost 3,000 civilians.

Although the concept of my sculpture, DARK ELEGY, was spawned out of this, my personal, tragedy, it has always been dedicated to all victims of terrorism.

This sculpture needs no language, it is understood by all. It is not political in any partisan sense. It knows no borders. Today, people all over the world are affected by terrorism.

DARK ELEGY is a universal appeal for peace and dignity for all victims of senseless hate and vengeance called terrorism and will be a beacon for all peace loving people.

DARK ELEGY stands as a reminder of that hatred.

— SUSE LOWENSTEIN


darkelegy103@aol.com       Dark Elegy, P.O. Box 50, Montauk, NY 11954