by adminIt is an eventful time for the monuments of the United States. The inanimate sculptures that long served as a mute civic backdrop have been violently thrust into the limelight, in contemporary conflicts entirely related to the historical violence their bronze and marble figures have represented or obscured. Cities from New York to Los Angeles have recently undertaken surveys of their public monuments; a national audit confirms that the monumental landscape is overwhelmingly white and male, celebrates war and conquest, and misrepresents American history. The need to remove, rehouse, or recontextualize the monuments we have is clear. But what comes after? How do we create sites of public memory that speak to the full American experience, both the horror and the beauty?
Downtown Newark is still awash in bronzes, but where the city took down a statue of Christopher Columbus, a very different work has risen in its place. By the light rail station in what is now Harriet Tubman Square is a new monument, entitled “Shadow of a Face.” Here, Harriet Tubman is not a person on a plinth but more akin to a pavilion’s protector. The canopy of her skirt and a larger-than-life relief of her face envelop a space where visitors can linger, reflect, and connect to a story of community support and Black liberation. This contemporary architecture parlante also literally speaks with an audio program and ceramic tiles contributed by Newark residents. We spoke with artist and architect Nina Cooke John, who designed the monument, and with Newark’s Arts and Culture Director fayemi shakur, who oversaw the commissioning process, about the meaning of representation in the search for a new monumentality. Meeting for the first time since the official inauguration in March 2023, they jumped back into an ongoing conversation about community, collaboration, and the making of a 21st-century monument.
Read the full article and interview at UrbanOmnibus.com.