Monuments & Memorials

Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the country has been transformed. Among these transformations was the creation of a series of memorials to document, preserve, and commemorate the genocide. In 2016, the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG) estimated there were 265 official memorials; however, this number is ever changing as memorials are created, centralized, or merged. While memorials are now highly legislated by governmental bureaucracy, they were not always. Memorials continue to be significantly influenced by internal survivor organizations such as IBUKA, external NGOs such as AEGIS Trust, and other individuals and/or foreign governmental authorities who donate time, money, and resources. The resultant memory practices have ranged from contentious to complimentary, with distinct differences between the memorials depending on when they were built and survivor input. Finally, memorials are increasing their digital presence through both governmental and non-governmental practices.

On the occasion of the opening in 2020 of the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, stylistic trends of modern Orthodox architecture and ecclesiastical art are analyzed. It’s considered the phenomenon of the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, its influence on the development of monumental religious painting in Russia, as well as the building the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church on Lubyanka. The problematic of the style of new Orthodox architecture and ecclesiastical art is formulated in terms of eclecticism (historicism) that has a programmatic symbolic meaning in the context of the “statization” of Russian art culture of the past few decades.

Based on the analysis of files from the Department of Defence, and drawing on interviews with veterans and on their associations' press, the article focuses on the Algerian War National Memorial in Paris, its long gestation and particularly its double, paradoxical status: that it is at the same time new and old, post-ideological and hyper-ideological. Thanks to its palimpsest configuration, this 'third millennium memorial' — as it was described by its creator (the artist Gérard Collin-Thiébaut) — has demonstrated itself to be perfectly tuned to that peculiar mode of relationship to the past that we can define as 'postmodern', a mode that is characteristic of what historian François Hartog called the presentist 'regime of historicity'.

During the period of NR/SR Bosnia & Herzegovina (1945-1992) thousands of monuments commemorating the People’s Liberation War, Struggle and Movement (commonly referred to in abbreviated form as NOR, NOB and NOP - henceforth collectively referred to as NOB) were created and unveiled on its territory. In recent decades, these monuments to the NOB have often become forgotten, ignored, or exposed to unquantifiable damage. The reasons for this ‘unquantifiability’ stem, in part, from the lack of a comprehensive recording system among and between stakeholders during the period of SRBiH, and the destruction of archives of stakeholders during the 1992-95 war and its immediate aftermath, but have been inarguably exacerbated by the administrative system in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the present day.
This paper aims to give a brief overview of the current situation of monuments to the People’s Liberation War, Struggle and Movement on the territory of Vogošća municipality, which today lies in Sarajevo Canton of the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina entity.

In this course we examine the public remembering and memorialization of historic events that leads to memorials and monuments in the fields of architecture, sculpture and film. We begin by examining the nature of memory, and specifically of collective memory, and its relationship to historical events and its subsequent transformation in the process of memorialization. We then look at examples of the sculptural monument, a traditional form of memorial, and the evolution of its vocabulary in the second half of the 20 th century. We also examine the memorial work undertaken by those museums whose primary function is to engage in remembering historical events, a recent phenomenon in the field of museum building. We screen films and examine how documentaries and dramatizations engage the spectator by remembering history differently. The course culminates by examining the debates surrounding the remembering of 9/11 and of more recent traumatic events. Course Objectives This course circumscribes two fundamental questions: 1) What is the nature of memory and how is it transformed in the process of memorialization; 2) What is the nature of the memorial and the monument and how do they conserve memory? Course Readings There are no required textbooks for this course. All of the assigned readings can be accessed electronically via MyCourses. Screenings:

La ricerca indaga gli spazi culturali del ricordo, ovvero quei luoghi dove risiede la memoria collettiva legata ai drammi del Novecento in Europa, nel periodo che va dalla fine della Prima Guerra Mondiale ai conflitti nei Balcani. Questi luoghi della memoria, presenti sia nel contesto urbano della città sia nel territorio, possono essere considerati all’interno di un sistema museografico diffuso che non si ferma alla semplice commemorazione ma diventa un luogo attivo/performativo che ha come obiettivi la trasmissione del ricordo e la partecipazione delle comunità locali. I temi, tuttora oggetto di studio del gruppo di ricerca coordinato da Luca Basso Peressut e Gennaro Postiglione, sono stati analizzati all’interno delle attività di ricerca del PRIN 2008 “L’intervento nelle aree archeologiche per la musealizzazione e la comunicazione culturale” e successivamente confluiti nel progetto internazionale “REcall- European Conflict Archaeological Landscape Reappropriation” (www.recall-project.polimi.it) di cui il prof. Gennaro Postiglione è Project Leader e la PhD Candidate Michela Bassanelli è il Principal Investigator.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of forced and undocumented migration by focusing on the heritage produced by the Vietnamese refugee diaspora following the Vietnam War (1955—1975). The analytical sources for this examination are the Vietnamese boat people memorials — the intentions behind their construction and reception. Ultimately, it explores whether memorization around the phenomenon of forced and undocumented migration can contribute to deepening understandings of what heritage is and how it is useful for in society and for whom.

MEMORIAL EARTH PARK ©
AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC SPACE, SYNTHESIZING BURIAL MOUNDS, FAMILY TREES AND HUMAN BODY COMPOSTING IN NORTH TEXAS

Gregory Alan Craig, PLA, LEED AP BD+C, MLA
The University of Texas At Arlington, 2019
Supervising Professor: Dr. Diane Jones Allen

Over the next 30 years, the population growth in North Texas will place increasing demands on our urban infrastructure and natural resources, while reducing our available public land and open space. Impacts from expanded urban development will decrease our tree canopy coverage, reduce air & water quality and increase impervious surfaces, urban heat island effects and storm water flooding. Environmental sustainability is critical to combat the negative impacts of future growth in North Texas.
The memorial landscape is a landscape of tremendous cultural significance in America (Wasserman, 1998) , but the two most traditional means of disposing of human remains are not sustainable, have significant carbon footprints, impose harsh environmental impacts and consume open space that is increasingly scarce in our ever expanding urban regions. Fortunately, new green death care technologies will provide opportunities for cities to create culturally significant and enduring memorial landscape. In recent years, scientific innovations and shifting outlooks on death have bred a change in the ways Americans plan for the fate of their dearly departed, including human body composting and green burial practices that offer a more sustainable vision of death in the future.
The objective of this design thesis is to research the history, form, spiritual and symbolic nature of man-made, burial and ceremonial mounds, while investigating human body composting. The goal is to synthesize a new land-form typology and create an environmentally sustainable, memorial mound park in the North Texas region. A memorial park designed around the principles of environmental sustainability. Sustainability that goes beyond site issues and addresses the issues inherent with traditional human body disposition.

This research discusses the challenges of establishing a collective memory for gay victims of the Nazi terror in World War II and examines the introduction of gay victimhood into the public sphere through memorialization efforts. While scholarly accounts on gays and the Holocaust emerged in the 1970s, little is known about the emergence and consolidation of a public narrative on gay persecutions under the Nazis. It raises important questions, including why a public voice for crimes against sexual minorities in World War II emerged only hesitantly? Drawing on historical gay memorialization processes in Germany, the author maps the obstacles for recognition, including external and internal challenges in expanding existing narratives and a collective memory of the past. This fraught advocacy work remains nonetheless crucial to promote commemorations of persecution and discrimination against minority groups that have received limited public acknowledgement.

Considered selected examples of contemporary art (Russian and foreign) addressed to the topic of monumentalization / memorialization. Emphasized the problem of “spiritual emptiness” in the public consciousness, as well as the possibility of its solution by artistic means. In the field of attention - the degree of correspondence of selected works to the declared topic, the possibility of terminological definition of current trends of the latest monumental art.
Анализируются примеры современного искусства (российского и зарубежного), обращенного к теме монументализации / мемориализации. Акцентирована проблема «духовной пустоты» в общественном сознании, а также проблема возможности ее решения художественными средствами. В сфере исследовательского внимания - степень соответствия избранных произведений заявленной теме, возможности терминологического определения актуальных тенденций новейшего монументального искусства.

Publié dans la revue "De Cliärrwer Kanton" Edition spéciale 2015 "Liex de mémoire", cet article traite l'instrumentalisation de faits historiques par un groupe politique à 100 des événements. L'article se consacre aux jeux du pouvoir ainsi qu'au réseautage politique

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

Around the same time the political controversy was brewing in the US over the removal of the Confederate statues, a parallel controversy was unfolding in Barcelona around the fate of a monument that was originally erected in 1884 to honor the Spanish financier Antonio López y López (1817-1883), who had traveled to Cuba in his youth and made his fortune through illegal slave-trafficking. The figure of López has always been entangled with national politics, as the wealth he amassed through this illegal activity allowed him to establish three commercial enterprises that played a major role not only in the industrial development of Catalonia in the nineteenth century, but also in sustaining colonialism in Africa and Spanish America .
This essay will analyze the debates surrounding the removal of López’s statue by the city of Barcelona in March 2018 , considering not only his place in Spanish colonial history, but also the changing historical circumstances that turned the statue into the object of different controversies, from the moment of its construction and reconstruction, to its final removal in 2018. The article will consider the following questions: What cultural myths and narratives around this figure were being privileged at particular moments in history and why? What impact have the debates around the monument had on how Barcelona’s colonial past has been defined, interpreted, and (re)framed? What possibilities does the public space on which López’s statue once stood offer for refiguring national history and identity in Spain today? Finally, the article will establish connections with the recent public debates surrounding the removal of the Confederate monuments in the United States, while recognizing the different historical and geopolitical contexts in which these monuments linked to slavery were erected and dismantled.

An examination of the Monument Movement in the years after the War Between the States looking at the reasons, meanings, and the monuments erected beginning with the early monuments in the North and the later rise of Southern monuments as the 40th-50th anniversaries approached.  Includes historic and modern photographs and a graphic illustration of new research on the dedications of Union and Confederate monuments.

'Mechtild Widrich's astonishing and original book connects performance histories, feminist theory and speech act theory to elucidate the "event character" of public art by contemporary artists. With her bracing formulation of the "performative monument" and her probing analysis of photographic documentation of live acts, Widrich advances a powerful argument about the stakes of spectatorship, temporality and collective memory.'

Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of California, Berkeley
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'Rigorously researched and argued, this important book will become required reading not only on the history and theory of performance art but also on the history of the "performative" itself as it has transformed public art and commemoration. With ideals of participation and engagement now commonplace in these arenas, Performative monuments shows us in vivid detail how these new ideals emerged and how problematic they have become. Ultimately, this book offers a hopeful message that art can perform its own investigation of the social world and lead us to engage in new and better practices of collective responsibility.'

Kirk Savage, Professor, History of Art & Architecture, University of Pittsburgh -- .
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"A slide projection of a Balkan capital city with the government buildings painted out; a Trojan horse made of scrap wood looming above the Venice lagoon; a lead column signed as resistance against neo-fascist tendencies; a tunnel made of stone and glass to commemorate the victims of National Socialism. All these interventions in the art-historical tradition of memorials and monuments were in fact made by performance artists. How does this fit into the common story that sets the seemingly transient live art of the 1960s, with its anarchic street actions, in opposition to official monument culture? I argue that performance, once reputed as an antipode to the monument in its ephemerality and messy embodiment, in fact holds the key to its contemporary revival.

This transformation could only take place, however, through the exploration of problems internal to performance: how to document or otherwise visually symbolize ephemeral, undocumented, even impossible actions. In solving this problem through the self-conscious use of documentary photography, film, and diagrammatic collage, performance artists found themselves referring to the past: not just their own and that of their actions, but of their political and cultural context, which, more than the act itself, proves elusive for later audiences. Performance, made durable and rhetorically powerful through photographic documents, thus gave rise to a kind of monument that was self-reflexive, taking account of its conditions of possibility and involving the audience in conventional transactions with binding social force. For the first time, there is the possibility of the ‘democratisation’ of history in these monuments through the delegation of authority from artist and state to the public, but with democratisation comes the danger of subjective self-indulgence and reassuring spectacle.

Connecting speech act and photography theory with media and memory studies, my book is an original contribution to the current debate on performance and art in public space, re-evaluating both the supposed one-time encounter of performance art and its loss to documentation, and the assumption that contemporary commemoration has democratically turned ‘against itself’ through countermonuments that refuse authority."

Presentation and slides at the commemorative conference "80 years Tertele", organized by the Dersim Cultural Association Berlin (Dersim Kulturgemeinde Berlin) and the Federation of Dersim Associations in Europe (FDG) in Berlin, 6th May, 2017

Il corso intende riflettere criticamente, con esempi e casi di studio, sul tema della relazione delle società umane con il passato anche a partire dagli stimoli emersi dal recente movimento di dibattito culturale denominato “cancel culture”. Scopo del corso è la contestualizzazione di diverse forme di cancellazione, riscrittura e rimozione del passato anche con interventi diretti sulle sue tracce e testimonianze materiali e culturali.

"This special issue of "Patrimonio Histórico" (Historical Heritage), the bulletin of the Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute, brings together a series of contributions aimed at disseminating the concept of megalithic heritage among cultural and historical heritage specialists. It provides a general overview of the basic themes involved in today's research of the megalithic phenomenon (section "ideas, theories, problems"), the main methodological innovations the field has experienced in recent years ("sciences, methods"), the public perceptions involved ("perceptions") as well as a series of major megalithic sites of southern Iberia ("sites, interventions, management")."

The commemoration of disasters is a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces in human society. Southern California's largely unheard-of St. Francis Dam Disaster of 1928 provides an excellent opportunity to study this complex process of commemoration, engaging memory within different frames of reference. In particular, evaluating how and why this man-made dam disaster has been forgotten on a state and national level, but tenuously remembered within the flood-zone, allows for consideration of the diversity of commemorative processes in the construction of memory and heritage related to major catastrophes. This research synthesizes archival and survey data to better understand how the disaster and the dead have been commemorated throughout the 54-mile flood zone: spatially, through state monuments, community memorials, grave markers, and memorabilia, and conceptually, through poems, songs, and oral histories. Identifying what parts of the past are remembered, and how they are remembered and interpreted, provides understanding of how public memory develops. Further, being able to determine the factors that influence why certain things are remembered and memorialized, while other things are forgotten, can provide insight into not only the individual motivations and perceptions related to the creation of memory, but also to the larger issues of how a culture establishes both legends and traditions.

The memorial complex of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan is  analysed as an architectural and symbolic entity in relation to the Armenian national identity in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide. How does this Soviet­ era structure fulfil its role as a genocide memorial today, including its function as a forced substitute for the hundreds of holy places and the culture and life connected with them?

The megalithic phenomenon is one of the most exciting subjects of study in prehistory. The practice of monumentalising places of special significance by erecting large stones started during the Neolithic period, approximately 10.000 years ago. On time, it acquired such a social and ideological depth that it became one of the most geographically and temporally widespread cultural phenomena ever known in Europe. In Andalusia,  megalithic sites and landscapes express themselves with great richness and diversity, representing an exceptional source of scientific information for our understanding of our forebears’ ways of life, as well as a unique and beautiful historical legacy. This book combines the contributions of various university professors, who bring us up to date with their research, with excellent photographic illustrations and, for the first time, reflects the spread of this cultural phenomenon throughout Andalusia. It is suitable for both those who wish to deepen their knowledge of this professional specialisation and those who seek the pleasure of a satisfied interest.

Vulnerable realism can imply two different understandings: one presenting weak realism as incomplete, and mixed with other literary styles; the other bringing realistic vulnerable experience into narration. The second is the key meaning for this work, but it does not exclude the first since the book asks questions about realism as such, entering into a polemic with the tradition of literary realism. Realism, then, is not primarily understood as a narrative style but a narration that tests the probability of nonhuman vulnerable experience and makes it real. 

The book consists of three parts. The first presents examples of how realism has been redefined in trauma studies and how it may refer to animal experience. The second explores that which is added to the narrative by literature, including the animal perspective (a zoonarrative) and how it is done (zoocriticism). The third analyses cultural texts (such as painting, circuses, and memorials) which realistically generate animal vulnerability and provide non-anthropocentric frameworks, anchoring our knowledge in the experience of fragile historical reality.

Una infanta castellana ocupó el trono inglés en el siglo XIII, dejando  importantes efemerides para la historia del Reino Unido durante su reinado. Los monumentos que el rey Eduardo I ordeno erigir en su memoria,  siguen siendo un homenaje por su amada Leonor de Castillla.

In the context of the huge diversification in the field of cultural heritage, there are nowadays many touristic places whose main appeal lies in the connection with tragic events. Beyond the scope of cultural tourism, it may be confusing to classify them due to the extraordinary richness and heterogeneity of the different types of tourism as typified by tourism science. Thus, the scientific community uses several labels to name the tourism practices carried out in touristic places linked to tragedy. Among the many, it is worth pointing out dark tourism and memorial tourism, not only because of their undeniable academic impact, but also because of the media relevance gained. This article deals with the problems faced when it comes to determining the boundaries of what may be considered dark tourism or memorial tourism. After a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical contributions regarding both models, what is most relevant is why and in which contexts one term or the other is used.

Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism-the unauthorized defacement, destruction , or removal of political symbols-may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses to let them speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior.