Shaping the Past: Town Hall

Conference on Innovative Forms of Memory Culture

On October 8 and 9, we kick off our project Shaping the Past with the Monument Lab Town Hall. This digital conference explores new models and practices for how we might shape the past in ways that continue to confront legacies of racist, sexist, and colonial systems of knowledge and to strengthen democracy through public spaces.

The Town Hall features a series of four keynote conversations and video presentations from some of the most interesting memory workers working across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Germany. Across two days of conversations, curators, writers, artists, and activists will discuss memory work across borders and the relationship between art and activism. Monument Lab Town Hall will explore critical and creative practices we might need towards monumental justice, education, and care.

Shaping the Past is partnership of the Goethe-Institut, Monument Lab, and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education). The project connects to the activist and artistic work of local, national, and transnational movements as a reflection of memory culture and discusses new perspectives on forms of memory.

REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE 

FULL SCHEDULE 

October 8, 12:00-3:00pm EDT  

Introductions by Monument Lab and Goethe-Institut 

Opening Performance
Curated by Arielle Julia Brown (Founder and Director, Black Spatial Relics)

12:15-1:30pm EDT
Curating Memory and Justice

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Founder and Artistic Director, SAVVY Contemporary) and Jasmine Wahi (Social Justice Curator, Bronx Museum)

Moderated by Patricia Eunji Kim (Assistant Professor, New York University; Assistant Curator, Monument Lab)

1:30-1:45pm EDT
Video Presentations from the 2020 Monument Lab Transnational Fellows

1:45-3:00pm EDT
Art, Activism, and Shaping the Public Sphere

Paul Ramírez Jonas (Artist; Professor, Hunter College) and Cannupa Hanska Luger (Artist)

Moderated by Michelle Angela Ortiz (Artist)

October 9, 12:00-3:00pm EDT   

Introductions by Tiffany Tavarez (Monument Lab) 

12:15-1:30pm EDT
Memory, Trauma, and Transformation

Daniela Schiller (Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine) and Mabel Wilson (Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University)

Moderated by Sue Mobley (Senior Research Scholar, Monument Lab)

1:30-1:45pm EDT
Video Presentations from the 2020 Monument Lab Transnational Fellows

1:45-3:00pm EDT
Confronting Art and History

Seph Rodney (Senior Editor at Hyperallergic) and Mirjam Zadoff (Director, Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism)

Moderated by Ken Lum (Curatorial Advisor and Co-Founder, Monument Lab)