Monument Lab Think Tank

In conjunction with the exhibition New Monuments for New Cities, the public art and history studio Monument Lab presents a series of roundtable discussions as public think tanks. Monument Lab has invited artists, curators, architects, organizers, historians, and urbanists to lead an open conversation about monuments, memory, and public space.

New Monuments for New Cities is the inaugural project of the High Line Network Joint Art Initiative. Five infrastructure reuse projects across North America selected artists from each participating city to create proposals (in the form of posters) for new monuments. Each site then presented an exhibition of the 25 proposals.

The public think tank is curated by Monument Lab, research residents of New Monuments for New Cities. 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.

The conversation will circulate around Monument Lab’s question they have asked in workshops at each of the partner cities: What timely revision would you make to our inherited monuments?

Each public think tank will comprise invited guest participants and a moderator sitting in a group in the covered passageway at 14th Street on the High Line, where the New Monuments for New Cities exhibition is installed. There will be extra seats available for inviting others to join. Each participant will share insights related to their work in the public realm, their interest and investment in public monuments and memory, and their questions related to the prompt.

October 5 participants: Manuel Acevedo (artist), Nadia Elokdah (Grantmakers for the Arts), Molly Rose Kaufman & Khemani Gibson (400 Years of Inequality), Patricia Eunji Kim (New York University), Melanie Kress (High Line Art curator), Leigh Claire La Berge (City University of New York), Karyn Olivier (artist), Mountain Pollen (artist), Sheetal Prajapati (Lohar Projects), fayemi shakur (curator/writer), Nona Faustine Simmons (artist), and Marisa Williamson (artist). Moderated by Paul Farber (Monument Lab).

October 12 participants: Glen Cantave (Movers and Shakers NYC), Pola Dobrzynski (For Freedoms), Todd Fine (Washington Street Historical Society/Little Syria), Tim Furstnau (Museum of Capitalism), Elizabeth Goldstein (Municipal Art Society), Jacob Morris (Harlem Historical Society), Eriola Pira (Vera List Center for Art and Politics), RJ Rushmore (Vandalog), and Evan Walsh (For Freedoms). Moderated by Ken Lum (Monument Lab).

Monument Lab intends for each conversation to yield a set of notes, keywords, questions, and other insights that will be documented in a forthcoming research publication produced as part of New Monuments for New Cities.

Accessibility
We encourage all persons with disabilities to attend. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at a program, please contact art@thehighline.org or (646) 774-2536. Program venues are accessible via wheelchair. The closest entrance to the event is at 14th Street, accessible via elevator or stairs. There will be fold-out chairs available for guests. The closest restrooms, which are wheelchair accessible, are on the High Line at 16th Street and Gansevoort Street.

The High Line is also accessible via a ramp at 34th Street, and via elevators at 30th Street, 23rd Street, 14th Street, and Gansevoort Street in addition to stairs at those locations, the Spur, 17th, 16th Street, and Gansevoort Street.