Flowers of Beslan by Nina Lindell

Twenty years ago, in the small city of Beslan, more than a thousand people gathered to celebrate the 1st of September — the start of the school year. Instead, they were taken hostage by terrorists and spent three scorching days cramped in a school gym without food or water. This terrorist attack took the lives of 334 people, 186 of them were children.

Flowers of Beslan is a handcrafted memorial that honors the 334 lives lost in the 2004 Beslan school tragedy through individually crafted paper poppies. Each delicate flower serves as a 'data portrait'. Its petals, size, and features are carefully designed to tell the story of one person — their fate during the attack, their age, their gender, and their connection to others.

Created during one year of meticulous work, this project transforms statistics into a living field of remembrance, where every flower stands as both a personal tribute and part of a collective visualization of loss. The poppy field 'grows' in School No.1's assembly hall — now part of Beslan memorial center — where bullet-marked walls still bear witness to the events of September 1-3rd 2004.

The installation is accompanied by an ambient soundscape: fainted music of Ossetian folk instrument Kisyn-Fændyr and the sounds of water, the water that the hostages so desperately needed.

Legend:
Color of petals - fate
Size & height - adults / children
Color of stamens - men / women
Proximity - family relationships