New York set to host spring exhibit on Nova music festival massacre

The large-scale remembrance installation will feature numerous items salvaged from the site of the music festival attack.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

An exhibition about the deadly terrorist attack at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel that took place on Oct. 7 will open in New York City later this month, organizers announced last week.

The installation — titled “Nova: Oct. 7 6:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” — will come to New York following a 10-week run in Tel Aviv.

It will be open to the public, although the exact date and location have yet to be announced.

The “6:29 am” references the time when Hamas terrorists began invading the music festival, killing 370 people from the concert and taking dozens of others as hostages back to the Gaza Strip.

The large-scale remembrance installation features items salvaged from the site of the music festival attack, including scorched cars, bullet-riddled bathroom stalls, festival decorations, and personal belongings left behind.

The exhibit will also have a “healing tent,” which organizers explained as a lighthouse promoting the theme “we will dance again.” Survivors of the brutal attack will be attending the exhibition, according to Billboard magazine.

“Through video screens combining unique documentation from the Nova party, artistic projections, and other means, we will be able, if only for a moment, to return to the difficult moments that occurred on site,” Nova co-founder Omri Sassi said while describing the exhibit when it was first announced in December.

The exhibit was organized by producers of the Nova Music Festival, and Jewish record executive Scooter Braun helped bring it to New York.

He said last week he was inspired to do so after visiting Israel in December, when he met with survivors of the Nova attack and saw the exhibit during its run in Tel Aviv.

“People need to understand it could have been any of us, at any festival,” Braun explained in an Instagram post where he announced the exhibit’s opening in New York.

“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.”

Donations from the exhibition will go to the Nova Healing Journey, an initiative that supports mental health treatment for survivors of the Oct. 7 attack and their families.

“I hope with this exhibition we can hold in our hearts that you can have compassion for all people,” Braun added. “One human’s suffering does not negate another’s … whether it be Israeli or Palestinian. You can call out for those in need of aid and still hold in your heart space for those suffering because of lost loved ones and loved ones still held hostage. If for any reason acknowledging those affected by the Nova massacre bothers you … please ask yourself why. In the meantime we will not forget them and we will dance again.”

massacreNova FestivalNYCThe Moment Music Stood Still