Monument Lab: A Memorial to the Pandemic

Thursday, May 27, 2021
A conversation with Sergio Beltrán-García (Forensic Architecture) and Patricia Eunji Kim (NYU; Monument Lab). Moderated by Marianne Hirsch (Columbia).

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage lives and livelihoods (especially of the most precarious, underserved communities) across the world. Traditional modes of mourning and commemoration are dangerous and ill-advised. How then, might communities and individuals grieve their losses? In this conversation, Sergio Beltrán-García (artist and activist) and Patricia Eunji Kim (art historian and curator) discuss the memorials, strategies, and stakes of commemorating the pandemic. If we dare to memorialize the pandemic dead, we must commit to unveiling the systemic inequities that left them so exposed. In other words, a memorial to the pandemic must also confront the very issues of labor, race, gender, and access that both created and exacerbated the conditions of vulnerability.

Monument Lab (monumentlab.com) is a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. Monument Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory. Founded by Paul Farber and Ken Lum in 2012, Monument Lab cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments.

Видео Monument Lab: A Memorial to the Pandemic канала IRCPL