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A Guide on How to Contribute to the Bulletin

A collaborative platform for critically reading and reimagining monuments.

The Monument Lab Bulletin is a collaborative platform for critically reading and reimagining monuments. We invite contributors who are deeply committed to changing the way we study, build, and interpret monuments. We welcome contributions from artists, students, scholars, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions. 

How you can contribute: 

  • Write an essay or reflection ($200)

  • Produce a digital story, video essay, or data visualizations ($200)

  • Conduct and share an audio or written interview ($100)

  • Publish an excerpt from a forthcoming book or exhibition related to monuments, memory, and public space (n/a)

  • Archive a live streamed event or panel (n/a)

  • Contribute another potential idea

What to Contribute

We invite contributions that address Monument Lab’s major themes: reflect, remember, and belong. Our team of Bulletin curators and editors will work with writers for content and style and provide feedback for non-written ideas. Essays can range from 800-1200 words, and must include images.

REFLECT: Topics that focus on monuments, memorials, contemporary art, museums, and sites of commemoration

Examples
As Strangers and Refugees: Olu Oguibe’s Performing Monument by Laurel V. McLaughlin
Survivors’ Monument by Patricia Eunji Kim

REMEMBER: Topics that focus on the process and practice of how we have and/or will remember collectively

Examples
Geographies of the Truce by Hilary Malson
How to Anti- A Monument by Take Action Chapel Hill
The New Gatekeepers: Will Google Decide How We Remember Syria’s Civil War? by Ellery Roberts Biddle

BELONG: Topics that focus on public space, land ownership, and legacies of belonging

Examples
Tethers to Invisible Monuments by Joel Garcia
A Marketing Campaign Against Advertising by R.J. Rushmore


How to Pitch

Our team of editors and curators welcome pitches for contributions to the Bulletin. We accept full drafts of articles and/or 250-word abstracts. Please submit your ideas to bulletin[at]monumentlab.com with the subject line “Bulletin Pitch”. Please attach your submissions as .PDFs, if possible. We will get back to you within one week’s time, if not sooner. 

Payment Details

$200 for essays, reflections, digital stories, video essays, or data visualizations
$100 for interviews to support potential costs of transcription

Editorial Philosophy

Monument Lab is committed to engaging, highlighting, and learning from people who approach monuments from antiracist, decolonial, feminist, queer, working class, ecological, anti-ableist, and other social justice perspectives.

Monument Lab

Monument Lab is an independent public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. Founded by Paul Farber and Ken Lum, Monument Lab works with artists, students, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on exploratory approaches to public engagement and collective memory. Monument Lab cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments.

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