Following a ten-week run in Tel Aviv, “6:29 AM The Moment Music Stood Still,” an exhibition honoring both the victims and survivors of the October 7 Nova Music Festival massacre in Israel, will be mounted in New York starting April 21 through May 25.
Given the sensitivity of the topic, the possibility of protests and overall potential security risks, the location of the exhibit has not yet been revealed.
According to Page Six, a “massive security plan that entails 24/7 armed guards and collaboration with local officials” will be put into place.
“We are hoping this exhibit shows visitors we can all hold two truths: one that yearns to memorialize and honor the massacre at the Nova Music Festival, and the other for all of the lives lost, both Palestinian and Israeli,” the exhibit’s organizers said in an official statement. “We want to bring hope to visitors, and enshrine the memories of those we lost.”
Music entrepreneur Scooter Braun is among the US partners joining forces with Nova founders Omri Sassi, Yoni Feingold, Ofir Amir and Yagil Rimoni to bring the production to this side of the world over six months since the terrorist attack first took place.
“People need to understand it could have been any of us, at any festival,” Braun, a grandchild to Holocaust survivors, said in an Instagram post announcing the installation’s NYC opening. “Music must remain a safe place. Because of that friends and I have teamed up with the founders of Nova to bring this exhibition to NYC. It is an in-depth remembrance of the brutal October 7th attack.”
Among the objects on display will be the scorched cars and bullet-filled bathroom stalls that have come to define the worst act of terrorism on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, when 370 people were killed at the music festival in Re’im and 44 were kidnapped, alongside personal items left behind and festival decorations.
An on-site healing tent and a lighthouse declaring “we will dance again” will also be part of the installation, which largely recreates the scene of the crime.
Exhibit-goers should also expect survivors to be on premise, both giving tours of the relics and talking about their experience.
All donations made at the exhibit will benefit the Nova Healing Journey, an organization that supports mental health treatment for October 7 victims and their families.
