The 2024 Monument Lab Summit in Philadelphia will bring together thought leaders influencing and innovating the monument landscape through groundbreaking forms of commemoration, acknowledgment, justice, and belonging around the theme of “Past is Presence.” Monument Lab will gather the monument changemaking community to elevate the power of coalitional public memory and art. At the Summit, we will convene artists, curators, grassroots organizers, federal officials, municipal and civic workers, educators, students, and more from around the country for keynotes, panels, and poets.
Join us virtually with our Summit Livestream Pass! Register here >
Check out the presenters:
- Elizabeth Alexander (President, Mellon Foundation)
- Anna Arabindan-Kesson (Artist, Professor at Princeton University)
- Joy Banner (Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Descendants Project)
- Jo Banner (Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Descendants Project)
- Niya Bates (PhD Candidate, History and African American Studies at Princeton University)
- Michelle Browder (Founder and Director, I AM MORE THAN…Youth Empowerment Initiative)
- Imani Jacqueline Brown (Artist, Activist, Writer, Architectural Researcher, Monument Lab Fellow 2024)
- Sonya Clark (Lead Artist, Declaration House)
- Arielle Julia Brown (Cultural Strategist, Performance Maker, Performance Curator, Dramaturg)
- Andrew M. Davenport (Director, Getting Word African American Oral History Project at Monticello)
- Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Historian, Professor, Author of Never Caught and She Came to Slay)
- Paul Farber (Director, Monument Lab)
- Jane Golden (Director, Mural Arts Philadelphia)
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Writer, Facilitator, Monument Lab Fellow 2024)
- Paul Ramírez Jonas (Artist, Professor, Art Department Chair at Cornell University)
- Fady Joudah (Poet, Author of [...], Monument Lab Fellow 2024)
- Cannupa Hanska Luger (Artist, Monument Lab Fellow 2024)
- Wit López (Artist, Founder and Artistic Director, Till Arts Project)
- Laura Huerta Migus (Deputy Director, Office of Museum Services, Institute of Museum and Library Services)
- Justin Garrett Moore (Program Director, Humanities in Place, Mellon Foundation)
- Lauret Savoy (Earth Scientist, Author, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape)
- Salamishah Tillet (Scholar, Writer, Activist)
- Patrick Weems (Co-Founder and Director, Emmett Till Interpretive Center)
- Gayle Jessup White (Public Relations and Community Engagement Officer, Monticello)
- Yolanda Wisher (Senior Curator, Monument Lab)
Major support for the Monument Lab Summit is provided by the Mellon Foundation, with additional support from Stardust Arts, the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Forman Arts Initiative, The Hearthland Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Philadelphia Foundation, and Wagner Foundation. Major support for Declaration House has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from VIA Art Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. Project partners include Independence National Historic Park, Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, and Getting Word African American Oral History Project.