Memorials often erase the very lives they claim to honor. Is it even possible to remember without replicating violence? The question haunts—not just how we remember, but whether we can. This piece reconsiders the debate over Dana Schutz’s painting “Open Casket” and how easily Emmett Till’s memory can be reduced to trauma, turning him into a monumental symbol and not a child who loved knock-knock jokes, packed his suitcase early for summer adventures, and begged for a motorbike.
Wright Thompson’s essay examines the site of Emmett Till’s murder and the people whose lives intersect with its memory—witnesses, descendants, investigators, and current landowners. Tracing how historical violence is preserved, buried, and reinterpreted across generations, this piece reveals the ongoing tension between collective erasure and public memorialization.
Announcing the launch of Buffalo Nation, led by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota). This visionary project imagines a future monument that honors bison as kin, as casualties of American expansion, and as catalysts for Indigenous regeneration and connection.
Photography is central to telling the story of Emmett’s brief life, his tragic death, and his mother’s resistance. The black-and-white photos that remain from that history/herstory enshrine mother and son in an era when postcards of lynched Black people were circulated around the country as souvenirs and long before viral images of police brutality dominated our social media feeds.
Monument Lab is proud to announce Bulletin Issue 02, a print journal focused on crucial and creative ideas in public art, history, and design. This issue, themed Reverence, was co-edited by Monument Lab Senior Curator Yolanda Wisher in collaboration with Patrick Weems and Daphne R. Chamberlain of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.