Facilitated by Miranda Kyle Featuring TK Smith, Morgan Lugo, and Isaac Duncan III.

Throughout human history, when empires or ideologies fall, so do the monuments attempting to immortalize them. We accept the toppling of the statuary of controversial political leaders like Saddam Hussein, the dismantling of the Bastille and the Berlin Wall, as the will of the people; acts of bravery and revolution. But when it comes to similar actions on American soil, controversy arises.

The Uprisings in the summer of 2020 brought to the forefront the decades-long struggles of BIPOC to reclaim public space. By asserting their rights to assemble, protest, and exist without threat of violence and death; and with calls (and actions) to remove Confederate and other monuments deemed oppressive and celebratory of a history of that violence.

This panel will discuss the future of these calls and the fallout from the removals. Analyzing the communities impacted but not often discussed: The artisans behind the scenes who created the monuments, the art admins/curators commissioning/managing collections, and artists envisioning the future of these spaces. We will unpack what could be done with the remains of monuments, the land they occupied, and what implications the concept of ownership have on imagining the future of our shared public commons.