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Residents of Mexico City are decrying a decision by officials to remove a statue protesting gender violence that had been mounted by activists last year.
El Universal reported that Claudia Sheinbaum, who serves as Head of Government in Mexico City (a position akin to a state governor), had made the call to remove the feminist “anti-monument.” The statue currently appears in a roundabout in the city, and will soon be replaced by another monument
— ARTnews
Sheinbaum has previously announced the commission of artist Pedro Reyes to replace a colonial-era sculpture by Frenchman Charles Cordier that depicted Christopher Columbus in light of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples protest last summer. Previously on Archinect... View full entry
Yet today these two pieces of fascist architectural propaganda are the centrepiece of a bold artistic experiment in addressing the debate around contested monuments, one which offers a template for other communities divided over whether to tear down or keep up monuments with racist, imperialist or fascist connotations. — BBC
Bolzano, the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy, has become an important case study over its demonstrated ability to thoughtfully frame several of its local fascist monuments in a contemporary light that presents the public with a challenge to improve its own... View full entry
As part of an International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples celebration in Mexico City on Sunday, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced a major new addition to a space in the city’s historic Paseo de la Reforma recently vacated by a monument to its colonial past. Artist Pedro Reyes has now... View full entry
Charlottesville said in a news release that the equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as well as a nearby one of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson will be removed Saturday. Designated public viewing areas for the removals will be established in both parks where the statues are located, the news release said. — PBS
The city had been planning to take at least the Lee statue down since 2016, which in part prompted the deadly 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally. A number of laws and local ordinances had put the removal in question before a court ruling earlier this year ultimately cleared the way. The... View full entry
Two statues of queens on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature were pulled down Thursday during a rally aimed at replacing Canada Day celebrations with actions in memory of hundreds of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves at residential schools across the country. [...]
The grounds were the destination of an Every Child Matters walk in Winnipeg on Canada Day afternoon to protest the fallout of Canada's residential schools system.
— CBC
The demonstrators were part of a Canada Day protest meant to draw attention to issues surrounding the forced removal and integration of 150,000 indigenous school children begun during Victoria's rule of the former UK Dominion. 6,000 of the children are reported to have died, and the recent... View full entry
On June 24th, the Fallen Journalists Memorial (FJM) Foundation announced its partnership with global engineering and infrastructure firm AECOM, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and the Levinson Group on a new site that pays homage to journalists worldwide... View full entry
![Frederick Douglass by Andrew Edwards. Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland. © Wikimedia user Thebrycepeake <a href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thebrycepeake" title="User:Thebrycepeake">Thebrycepeake</a> - I used a camera to capture the way an object bends the light around it to appear as though it exists., <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" title="Creative Commons...](https://archinect.imgix.net/uploads/68/68e9f820371589f1352ab218acd4bfd2.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&w=514 "Frederick Douglass by Andrew Edwards. Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland. © Wikimedia user Thebrycepeake <a href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thebrycepeake" title="User:Thebrycepeake">Thebrycepeake</a> - I used a camera to capture the way an object bends the light around it to appear as though it exists., <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/\" title=\"Creative Commons...")
Today, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a new five-year, $250 million grant effort called the "Monuments Project," which will "transform the way our country's histories are told in public spaces." Grants made under the new initiative will fall under three areas of activity: Funding new... View full entry
Conceptual artist JB Daniel wants to transform a Chicago landfill site near the Calumet River into a sculpture park to house all of the toppled monuments from recent protests, reports The Art Newspaper. The artist proposes the statues be installed in their topped states with their... View full entry
Last week, President Donald Trump's unveiled the Executive Order on Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, a measure that sets out to create a new "National Garden of American Heroes" to be filled with statues depicting "historically significant Americans. ... View full entry
Over the holiday weekend, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new "National Garden of American Heroes" that will contain statues depicting "historically significant Americans" and other historical figures like Christopher Columbus. The order comes as protest movements and... View full entry
London Mayor Sadiq Kahn has announced a new commission that will "review and improve diversity across London’s public realm to ensure the capital’s landmarks suitably reflect London’s achievements and diversity." A press release announcing the creation of the commission states: "The... View full entry
After the tragedy, [a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va.] and another honoring Stonewall Jackson were shrouded, but only temporarily. Around the country, similar monuments have been removed. In some cases, only their pedestals remain.
We asked artists to contemplate these markers of our country’s racist and violent history — the space they take up, physically and psychically — and imagine what should happen when they are gone.
— The New York Times
Around the US many statues and monuments celebrating racism in our country's history have been removed, either partially or fully. The question currently remains on what we as a culture should do concerning the spaces these historical monuments inhabit[ed]. The New York Times asked artists to... View full entry
Had things gone differently, France's Arc De Triomphe could have been a massive giant elephant!—at least, that is what architect Charles Ribart envisioned for the landmark back in 1759 before his proposal was rejected by the French Government. Similarly, Sydney's iconic Opera House, known for... View full entry
So why is it that, as the United States has engaged in a contentious process of dismantling monuments to its Confederate past, and France has rid itself of all streets named after the Nazi collaborationist leader Marshall Pétain, Italy has allowed its Fascist monuments to survive unquestioned? — The New Yorker
Many monuments and buildings constructed in the late nineteen-thirties, as Benito Mussolini was preparing to host the 1942 World's fair, are still standing in Rome. "In Germany, a law enacted in 1949 against Nazi apologism, which banned Hitler salutes and other public rituals, facilitated the... View full entry
The project, called Paper Monuments, will entail a series of posters plastered all over the city that detail the people, places, events, and movements of the city’s 300-year history.
“When we make decisions that do embody hatred, whether we mean to or not, it allows for society to grow along those frameworks. Our job should be to acknowledge them and counteract them and produce things that elevate the welfare of the constituents that we serve.”
— Co.Design
“It’s not simply about the ways individuals hold onto ideology, but it is more so about the way individuals embed their ideology into the spaces and places we all frequent. For us the Paper Monuments project is still rooted in the fact that these symbols of oppression need to be countered by... View full entry
