Idea Lab Conversation: Unsettling “Monument”
Cancelled due to COVID-19
Join us for a conversation about artists challenging the status-quo of what a monument “ought to be.” What is the necessity of speculative fiction, strategies of resistance, and counter-narrative in public space?
https://monumentlab.com/projects/shaping-the-past
Shaping the Past is a partnership between Monument Lab, the Goethe-Institut, and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (German Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb) that addresses pressing issues around what, whom, and how to remember in public spaces.
The project facilitates a transnational exchange program bringing artists and activists together in dialogue to highlight ongoing critical memory interventions in sites and spaces in North America and Germany. Shaping the Past supports civic practitioners, artists, and activists who critically reimagine monuments and emerges from the ongoing Monument Lab Fellows program (including Ideas for Creative Exploration Graduate Research Assistant Annie Simpson). These collaborations and conversations offer innovative models for how we might memorialize the past, create dialogue, and strengthen democracy through public spaces across the globe.
Monument Lab is an independent public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. Founded by Paul Farber and Ken Lum, Monument Lab works with artists, students, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on exploratory approaches to public engagement and collective memory.