Our Mission
Monument Lab is a nonprofit public art, history, and design studio based in Philadelphia. We are dedicated to advancing justice by reimagining monuments as places for belonging, learning, and healing.
We believe that our unreconciled past and our inherited monument landscape continue to reinforce systems of injustice, haunt our present, and impact our individual and collective futures.
We center artists and local changemakers to collectively transform how monuments are created, interpreted, and experienced.
We cultivate conversations about the past, present, and future of monuments as a means to animate democracy and foster generational change.
Our Vision
We envision a future where dignity, equity, and justice thrive; where truth-telling is honored; where artists and changemakers are recognized as thought leaders; and where monuments are dynamic and contribute to the holistic well-being of people, place, and our planet.
Our Approach
We achieve impact through the three Monument Lab Programmatic Pillars:
CONNECT: Field Building
We connect, accompany, and strengthen the community of monument changemakers.
CREATE: Public Practice
We curate, engage, and build monumental projects through artistic collaboration and civic partnerships.
AMPLIFY: Narrative Change
We produce and share stories that reimagine symbols and systems of belonging.
Our Values
As an organization we aspire to make all of our decisions, including how our resources are obtained and allocated, based on these values:
- Art at the Core
We are artists and believe that art is critical to how we understand, experience and imagine the past, present and future, so we engage with artists whenever possible. - Process Matters as Much as Outcome
We aim to take time for quality, move at the speed of trust, and cultivate relationships beyond the life of a single project. We strive for a powerful final result that is fueled by intentional and iterative processes. We balance urgency and timeliness with purposeful reflection. - Getting Free Together
We are driven by anti-racist, de-colonial, feminist, queer, working class, climate-conscious, and disability justice perspectives, and know all forms of oppression must be dismantled for us to truly get free. - Collaboration With Boundaries
We are committed to working with individuals, organizations, and institutions, but only build trusting relationships with those that share values and honor a collective sense of process. - Integrity With Accountability
We intend for our words and actions to be aligned. If it comes to our attention, from staff, collaborators, or anyone else that we’re out of whack, we pause, process and apologize to determine the best way forward. - Culture of Care
To maintain our own wellbeing and support collective healing, we acknowledge the presence of trauma while centering a culture of care, repair, harm reduction, and safety for all. Expressing joy, having fun, and sharing nourishment are essential parts of our organizational culture. - Citation and Compensation
We acknowledge all contributors (including artists, students, educators) for the fullness of their efforts. We value local knowledge and expertise while building strategic coalitions across locations. This takes form in a number of ways including as payment, citation, credit, authorship, or ownership, as decided with each individual or collective ahead of time. - Wisdom and Learning
As students and teachers with an endless curiosity, we are perpetually learning from others and sharing information. We believe that wisdom and intelligence comes in many forms. We are committed to challenging white-centric, hegemonic norms and neutrality.
About Monument Lab
Monument Lab is a nonprofit public art, history, and design studio that is a leading voice in how monuments live with us in public spaces. As a team of artists, curators, and researchers, Monument Lab critically engages our inherited symbols in order to unearth the next generation of monuments that elevate stories and systems of belonging. Monument Lab has been recognized for producing groundbreaking public art exhibitions, participatory research initiatives, media projects, civic and municipal partnerships, and site-specific commissions and workshops. Monument Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory. Monument Lab is based in Philadelphia, with team members and collaborators located across the United States, its territories, and beyond. For more information and to support, visit MonumentLab.com.
Supporters and Partners
Monument Lab is supported by the Mellon Foundation, Bloomberg Connects, Forman Arts Initiative, Hearthland Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Open Society Foundations, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Philadelphia Foundation, Stardust Arts, VIA Art Fund, Wagner Foundation, and the William Penn Foundation.
Some of Monument Lab’s past and current partners include the Americans for the Arts, Aspen Institute, Barnes Foundation, For Freedoms, High Line, Lincoln Presidential Foundation, Mural Arts Philadelphia, National Park Service, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and its Getting Word African American Oral History Project, Trust for the National Mall, and the Village of Arts & Humanities.
Monument Lab also co-founded the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design as a platform for artistic research and civic engagement.