LandMarked: An Archive of an Archive

As I saw numerous monuments fall over the past few months, I was in awe. The song from Rihanna’s “Man Down” played in my head as I saw numerous white supremacist, slaveholding colonizers being rightfully removed from their pedestals. I was not perturbed but tickled by the fact that extreme right wing conservatives were spinning this moment to the extreme of: “Protestors are knocking down statues of Jesus.” Instead of recognizing the fact that: signifiers of white supremacy are still ever present in The United States they fabricated a completely new story. As the most recent uprising against systemic racism and oppressive systems recently played itself out in the streets of The United States, these right wing conservatives figure heads continued the practice of mass distribution of misinformation.The irony of this misinformation and the lack of truth of what is actually happening in front of our eyes was so much that I could not help but laugh. Now that these monuments are falling and the hegemony can not survive, a question arises: what do we do with these empty spaces? 

In between 2015-2016, I spent an extended period of time in Mississippi because a relative was sick. It was only as an adult that I was able to more fully articulate and see the contrast between the architecture of white supremacy and the spaces and neighborhoods that surround dispossessed people. This crystalized vision made me see the irony of the architecture that I was surrounded by. Most state roads had not been paved for years. There is no access to quality affordable healthcare, food, and education. Yet in the midst of all this, confederate monuments remain unscathed and in their pristine condition.

It was while I was in this moment, that I started to create the conceptual foundation of my ongoing project currently called LandMarked.

LandMarked is an exploration of the architectural objects that we call monuments. It is a three-part project that consists of workshops, public performances, and a future vision to democratize public memorials through crowdsourcing objects of memory utilizing 3D printing technology. At this point, I am still in the first two steps of the work in reviewing the archive of responses to these workshops and documenting public performances. 

In 2016, I started to host workshops in Baltimore. For these workshops, there are numerous research questions. 

LandMarked Workshops

The workshops were designed to grasp the general sentiment that people feel about monuments. In between 2016 and 2019, I hosted workshops in a variety of places: in Baltimore next to a The Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument that was removed; at Maryland Institute College of Art; at Night of Ideas in The French Embassy; in my artist studio during open studios; in Dallas Texas at a 19th century conference; and at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. 

The set up of the workshops varied. At some sites, I set up a table with paper, pens and markers for people to respond. At others, I did a presentation before asking people to consider these questions. At times, a person was present to help facilitate a dialog around these questions. 

The variety of locations is important to me and this project. Participatory action research and participatory design principles are at the center of this approach as I am interested in creating an archive of feelings, emotions, or sentiments towards the construct of the monument as we know it today. Through the lens of this archive, my aim is to dream of the new forms that monuments can take and the new meaning that monuments can make.

This archive is by no means a conclusive reflection on the sentiment of the time. However, I do see it as a snapshot of the time and the place in which these workshops happened. My goal was to create a toolkit for people to host these workshops at libraries and in cities throughout the United States. However, due to the present state of the pandemic in the United States, this goal is unattainable.

The idea of using a Google form instead to understand the sentiment of this moment is one that I have considered. But there is something that is immediate about using paper as a medium. It is a material that is easily accessible to everyone. It drops the pretense that most people associate with art. It also creates a space for the archive of our perspectives to be tangibly viewed, held inside of our own hands and to be mounted in a way that we see and are able to visualize the levity of our voices and the variety of perspectives on the subject of monuments.

To date, I have more than 300 responses from people in a myriad of cities across the United States. My goal is to continue to host these workshops and continue to create an archive of this moment. After reviewing the results of these surveys thus far, I have mounted a series of installations in response. I also developed a sketch for a 3D printed crowd sourced monument. In the future, I would like to present these results as an installation that travels to venues near sites where confederate monuments were removed. Below are a few responses to questions posed during workshops.

When was the last time you looked at a monument?

The majority of responses affirmed that monuments are a part of daily experiences. Responses ranging from daily, to last week, to two weeks ago were common. People noted that monuments were also sites for field trips, or special occasions. Moreover, monuments are sites that people go to for aesthetic purposes, or important markers of a city that is being visited. 

How often do you look at monuments?

The responses had more variety because this question implies actively viewing or actively seeking out a monument. Some respondents felt like they should look at monuments more. Some respondents felt that they look at them every day. 

The distinction between this question and the one above are illustrative of the ways that we either actively or passively view and experience the physical architecture that we are surrounded by. Although, one could argue that there is no such thing as passive looking and to look is in itself an act.

Where are your monuments?

Most of the responses referred to a site or location of a particular personal monument. A lot of these references were places that people associated with home.

- Where I travel
- My kitchen 
- #anygreenexperience?
- All around me. 
- my monuments are in new delhi my monuments aren’t white

Where are your landmarks?

Most of the responses referred to a site or place in a particular location with coordinates on the equator. However, there were two responses that stuck out because they conveyed a more emotive relationship to land.

- My landmarks are the places where i’ve spent most of my life being there in addition to the places that have emotional values in my heart.
- A land with my footprint I went there and i have changed

Do monuments mean anything to you?

Most of the responses demonstrated a lack of interest in monuments or a lack of reverence for the current forms and shapes that dominate the space of monuments as they exist today. The responses that did not reflect a general feeling of apathy were interesting to me because they demonstrate that perhaps, the contemporary citizen in the United States does have a connection to the sculptural forms. 

- Do Men Mean Anything to You?
- Not really. I know the monuments usually represents as a history, but in my opinion, the monuments are just a piece from sculptures who wanted to keep their memory.
- They are like a rock in a world constantly changing
- Not to me personally, but I think monuments are signifiers of what is meaningful to a culture.
- So often I don’t know much about the person they’re commemorating it leads to question and discovery.. sometimes.
- Monuments mean the process of human becoming

What will monuments look like in the future?

Most of the responses included some form of technology. From 3d printing to VR to AR, technology seems to be at the center of most responses. This is interesting but also not surprising because since pre-modern moments of history, technology was at the center of the monuments that were erected. It makes me wonder if in this moment, do we even need another monument or do we need better healthcare? Or is there something about considering progressing the aesthetic experience of public space that continues to make us evolve as humans?

This is no surprise because technological innovation is a recurring theme in the archive of the form of monuments. After reviewing these responses, I created a sketch for a crowdsourced monument that would change form over time using 2.0 technology. A 3D printed form where local citizens could vote on and design every three years. The concept of this monument would also change according to the interest of the people who are interested and engaged in the region. This use of technology could go terribly wrong and amazingly well. It depends on how it gets moderated and organized. Facebook is an example of a lack of lucid moderation. Facebook is also an example of 2.0 going terribly wrong as data is aggregated and sways public opinion and therefore elections. But the revolution of technology can provide us with a new approach to create a new traditional archive of a story, a memory, a new space to remember and acknowledge the past that has no chapters or pages in traditional textbooks or public school curriculum.

Clearly, this is not the only archive of this moment. It is an archive with questions that are meant to read the pulse of the time. It is an archive of answers to questions that produce more questions. And in this never-ending query, I hope that we can collectively reach to a truth that this moment so greatly requires.

To see more of Ada's LandMarked sheets, check out this photo album.