Monument Park

Team 

Name: Jamie Leer

Nationality: Canadian

Institution / Company: Dalhousie University

– FINALIST of 2020 Monument Competition

Monuments are often generated in the wake of events, as we continue to face difficult times more events present themselves as opportunistic for memorialization. But just as the monuments of our past become dated and obsolete, so too shall the monuments of today become dated for our future selves. The monument of today needs to seek truth, it needs to grow and develop with time. Monument park presents the public with monumental elements/typologies such as arches, columns, walls, pedestals, tombs, plaques, stairs, and fountains, with no meaning attached. Let us give monuments back to the communities in which they reside, no longer shall they be dictated by a singular wealthy entity who enforces their ideal monument onto its peoples. People will become their own monuments, for it is not objects that make history, it is living bodies. Fill the park with people, allow them to protest, to speak, to sing, to dance for they themselves are the monument. Add a plaque, tear one down, build a statue, hang a flag and let the community pursue their own form of place making. Monument park is monument anarchy, and it is what we need for the future of monumentalization.

#placemaking #revolution #anarchy #community #culturalexchange