OCT 2018 MONUMENT LAB FREE REPORT TO THE CITY #monumentlab www.monumentlab.com s a nation, we are in the midst of a Last year, Monument Lab and our partners stories about the city around the understanding long reckoning over our inherited at Mural Arts conducted a citywide, participatory and experience of power. The difference, however, monuments. research project in Philadelphia. We worked with is that this data is purposely messy, with the fin- Across the country, after twenty leading contemporary artists to install gerprints left on it, collected on handwritten forms. pressure from activists, artists, prototype monuments in public squares and parks, It is not meant to be polished, but instead is open A and students, city governments and opened ten adjacent research labs staffed by for interpretation. The research proposals can be are grappling with questions research teams facilitating dialogue and gathering understood in myriad ways. We share findings here of representation in the monumental landscape. public proposals. The project was driven by a central with a reminder that the data is open and available for The removal of several statues, including those question: What is an appropriate monument for the analysis or possibility beyond these pages. Some of dedicated to Confederate generals and other prob- current city of Philadelphia? Over 250,000 people the proposals could most certainly be implemented lematic figures has garnered attention and created engaged in person, over a million on social media as is and should be. Others could never be built, as a few sites of cultural repair. The memorializing of a platforms, and over 4,500 left their own proposals at they call only for advocacy or redress. Collectively, handful of new figures in some cities adds chapters one of the labs. It was one of the largest participatory they speak to the relationship between the historical to local public histories. However, the untroubled, research projects of its kind in Philadelphia. record and collective and individual memory—and overwhelming status quo fills out the rest of our the urge to demand proper recognition for a broader historical imaginations and civic spaces. We are representative history of the city. haunted by the unresolved matters of the past The Report offers summary findings as an and our inability to adapt, address, and remediate WHAT IS AN attempt to honor and represent the thousands of par- in the present. ticipants who shaped this research. The four broad Since 2012, the Monument Lab team has explored APPROPRIATE areas into which our team grouped these findings questions around public art, asking over twenty include rethinking common knowledge, craving artists and hundreds of thousands of public partic- representation, seeking connection with others, ipants from around the world simple yet profound MONUMENT FOR and reflecting on process and power, though there questions about the history, function, and potential were many brilliant contributions outside these of monuments. The resulting conversations have THE CITY OF categories. This Report serves as an experimental helped engage and drive the public debate about case study and invitation to city government and monuments in Philadelphia and beyond. This partic- PHILADELPHIA? cultural institutions in Philadelphia and other cities. ipatory research has led to dozens of experimental, The proposals recognize that “hidden histories” are temporary “prototype” monuments that have tested not quite hidden. They are discussed, practiced, and the waters for new ways to learn about our past, Now that the research has been transcribed, valued by people all over the city, including in public confront the present, and interact with one another. mapped, and submitted to OpenDataPhilly, this squares and neighborhood parks. The challenge Prototype projects such as Hank Willis Thomas’s All Report to the City, a summary of findings written by is how to listen to those conversations and come Power to All People, Sharon Hayes’s If They Should the Monument Lab curatorial team, offers a reading together to do something about it. Ask, Michelle Ortiz’s Seguimos Caminando (We Keep and reflection on the immense creativity and critical From the research outward to the broader impli- Walking), and other installations by Monument Lab energies demonstrated by public participants, as cations of changing the monumental landscape, we collaborators remind us of the role of social justice well as key findings from an examination of the data. contend as a definitive statement that any approach and solidarity in contemporary monuments. Ad- The field of responses is a stunning, unprecedented to dealing with, debating, or replacing monuments ditionally, the work of Monument Lab has grown glimpse into the historical imagination of Philadel- must consider a period of public imagination and alongside sibling projects and similar efforts in other phians. This was not about what is practical or about inquiry. We have to reckon with our symbols. But we cities, including Paper Monuments in New Orleans, finding a solution ot a particular problem. It was an also must face the systems that perpetuate bias and A Long Walk Home’s Visibility Project in Chicago, exercise in turning to cultural memory as a source of exclusion. and others. democratic action. The ideas that monuments are timeless, that We are pursuing this work at a time when cities We invite serious consideration of this archive they have universal meaning, and that they are are more openly recognizing that the monuments of ideas as a collection of civic data, now available standalone figures in history are truisms that we we have inherited are complex sources of history,, at proposals.monumentlab.com. We recommend believe need to be challenged. Our intent is not to emblems of civic power, and reflections of the that city agencies in Philadelphia and elsewhere take defeat the idea of civic monuments, but to invigorate disparity and despair of our times. No longer stuck in seriously both the ideas offered and the methods of them through new public engagement possibilities time, the concept of the monument is under revision. inquiry: namely, asking participants to ponder the so that future monuments function as constantly Rather than serving as symbols proclaiming the past promises and pitfalls of public space while situated activated sites for critical dialogue, response, and as settled, monuments today conjure a new set of in public space while situated in public space and in experimentation. questions: Who are the figures who have earned status conversation with one another. as heroes of history and what remains unspoken about The data produced through Monument —Paul M. Farber, Ken Lum, and Laurie Allen their lives? How do we carry on given the weight of the Lab, whether viewed in spreadsheets or charts, Monument Lab past? How do we remember and toward what ends? resembles other forms of civic data. It maps the THE RESEARCH PROCESS A detailed look at Monument Lab’s research methods Ø Page 1 RETHINKING COMMON KNOWLEDGE Exploring the range of monumental histories and visions that participants offered about Philadelphia I Page 3 CR AV ING REPRESENTATION Identifying the people and communities who are missing from the city’s current collection of monuments II Page 5 SEEKING CONNECTION WITH OTHERS Recognizing the hope for solidarity across lines of injustice and inequality III Page 9 REFLECTING ON PROCESS AND POWER Turning attention toward the ways that the city’s power is envisioned and engaged by the city’s residents IV Page 11 CLOSING REMARKS Closing statement and key findings V Page 11 Ø THE RESEARCH PROCESS LOCATION Participants were invited to imagine a location for their proposed monument. MONUMENT NAME Participants were invited to title their proposed monument. DESCRIPTION Monument descriptions could take the form of text, illustration, or both. Some gave only a brief impression of what the monument could be, while others sketched out detailed schematics. ZIP CODE Zip codes were used RESEARCH ID to map participants’ Each proposal was assigned a involvement in the project. unique ID number by lab staff for internal tracking AGE Ages were used to analyze generational trends and IDENTIFIER historical memory Participants could optionally share identifying information, should they wish to receive credit or attribution he research process used during respect to their hopes about the stories we honor in themselves are an important outcome of the project. Monument Lab was tested in the the past, the needs of the present moment, and their Thinking together in public about our shared spaces discovery phase of the project expectations and ideals for the future. It was also an is, we believe, a worthy goal in itself. And those who over three weeks at City Hall in invitation to define appropriateness as a matter of chose to do so were invited to write or draw their ideas spring 2015. We posed a single feasibility, ethical or moral imperative, or one’s own on the open form. While technology was certainly T open question and collected creative expression. an important part of the Monument Lab project, we responses from hundreds of It matters who asks the question. We started by wanted the interactions for this exhibition to occur in passersby. The details of this method are worth a hiring a phenomenal team of lab managers who know parks without expensive or complex equipment that brief explanation here, as they speak to the values the city, who believe in public art and engagement, might distance some participants from the question. embedded in the project. The research form offered and who were eager to learn from people throughout And we wanted people to hand their responses over to each participant presents a blank space to those the city and to respect the knowledge that they to another person—to share them in physical space, who opted to participate, and each proposal form received through the proposals.