The recent Black Lives Matter protests have taken a turn to attacking the statues of prominent historical figures [1] [2]. The issue they raise is that many of these monuments promote only a progressive narrative, but rarely do they disclose the “dark side”, such as involvement in the slave trade, the creation of residential schools, colonialisation, etc. There is embedded in these protests a request for the full story. A request for a narrative that includes the perspectives of all involved parties, not just one special interest. It is a request for inclusion.
These events have motivated me to look into the role of monuments and their place in commemorating past events, and people; their role in keeping our memories, aligning our communities to a social narrative about ourselves, and our identity. But importantly, how they exclude.
My work will build on this definition of a monument:
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical, political, technical or architectural importance. Some of the first monuments were dolmens or menhirs, megalithic constructions built for religious or funerary purposes. Examples of monuments include statues, (war) memorials, historical buildings, archaeological sites, and cultural assets.
The origin of the word “monument” comes from the Greek mnemosynon and the Latin moneo, monere, which means ‘to remind’, ‘to advise’ or ‘to warn’, suggesting a monument allows us to see the past thus helping us visualize what is to come in the future
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