Marking Absences – Shifting Narratives
Digital UN-Conference - October 2020 - recordings below
Urban landscapes are augmented layers of hegemonic power that materializes in buildings, street maps, and monuments in the public space. After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, the removal of white supremacist statues and symbols from cities across the world has become one of the central demands of protesters. While removing monuments to past figures and events can be a daunting process, to imagine and facilitate the installation of new monuments seems just as relevant. What challenges do artists, city planners, and local communities face in the creation of public art for the 21st century? Who decides what is commemorated or celebrated in the public space? How are these decisions made?
We invited artists, architects, city officials, scholars, and activists to exchange ideas and contemporary practices for creating new contemporary monuments for our age and as the question, what it means to position art in public space and essentially, what form and shape societal memory can take.
Marking Absences – Shifting Narratives, is organized by curator Niama Safia Sandy.
Recordings
Un/making a Monument
Un/making a Monument brought together artists Kenseth Armstead, Olu Oguibe, and Lava Thomas with public art administrator Kayla G. Coleman to share their challenges and successes devising public art projects on the global stage. How are communities invited into the process of developing projects? How do artists and administrators envision art objects living on the landscape in the future? How has the public responded to the work? In what ways has the public inscribed these objects with their own ideas? Moderated by Desirée Gordon.
Projecting the Future
Tomie Arai and Alisha B. Wormsley are among the 2020 Shaping the Past fellows with Monument Lab and the Goethe-Institut. Individually, their work endeavors to hold space for who/what is already present and project their specific communities into the future against forces of structural racism (neglect, urban renewal, gentrification). Together, the two fellows considered their practices at large, and methods for revisioning the past in ways that do not seek to harm.
Sound as Monument
Each of the panelists, Arielle Julia Brown, La’Vender Freddy, and Natalie Hopkinson, grapples with the sonic textures of the places they work in. Together they delved into how sound functions as a monument to memory, whether it can heal and restore. The panel interrogate whether advancing/acknowledging the culture of their sounds can be a functional framework for developing new futures for a community. Moderated by Arlette-Louise Ndakoze.
A Matter of Public Inspiration
A Matter of Public Inspiration invites a cross-section of those leading the charge to bring social justice to their communities to reflect on the landscape of their cities. At their best, monuments and public art installations can become part of a community’s psyche, acting as extensions of ourselves and our hopes and dreams. Naila Opiangah, Walter Cruz, Hank Willis Thomas, Jerald Cooper, and Kaneza Schaal share about the fixtures in their communities that have shaped and inspired them and functioned in their life. Moderated by Niama Safia Sandy.
A People’s Manifesto
1014 and the Goethe-Institut New York ask New Yorkers how they believe monuments and public art should function. In October, their answers will be displayed on the Goethe-Institut’s storefront at 30 Irving Place.
Get a free set of postcards
With most of our events being digital, we still want to give you something tangible. You can order a set of postcards with a selection of modern monuments and art in public spaces - for free.
Curated by Niama Safia Sandy
Niama Safia Sandy is a New York-based cultural anthropologist, curator, producer, multidisciplinary artist and educator. Niama’s work delves into the human story, often with stories of the Global Black diaspora at its center.
She currently hosts and produces a weekly conversation series FOR/FOUR, featuring Black women and non-binary persons in the arts and culture. Niama recently helped found The Blacksmiths, a new coalition of culture workers standing together to forge support for Black liberation against anti-Black racism in the academy and at presenting institutions. Through The Blacksmiths, Niama has produced resources and public events engaging communities, activists, artists across disciplines, and more to close the gaps in appropriate opportunities for Black artists, curators, and administrators on the global stage.
Partners
Marking Absences – Shifting Narratives is presented by the Goethe-Institut New York and 1014 as part of Shaping the Past, a project of the Goethe-Institut, Monument Lab, and the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Shaping the Past connects memory workers across Canada, Mexico, the US, and Germany who have piloted new approaches to shape the past in their own local contexts. Visit www.goethe.de/shapingthepast for more information on the project and all related events.
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