The Monumental Project
Welcome to The Monumental Project: How Historic Sites and Monuments of Yesterday Affect Us Today. As the official companion podcast of the Monuments Toolkit program, we will be diving deep into the pieces of American history found across the nation, and how the stories they carry impact the modern day American citizen. The goal of this podcast and the program at large, is to address the question “how do we address monuments of oppression?” What are our options for dealing with painful pieces of our past? How can we learn, heal, and move forward? By the end of this season we’ll have a better understanding.
Episodes
21 episodes
Methods of Approach: Trends in Monument Removal, Relocation, and Reinterpretation
Monument removal, relocation, and reinterpretation is a process that has several means to its end. For some, this process involves work from activists in the community appealing to political leaders. In other cases, decisions to rectify an oppr...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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44:28
The Alex Odeh Memorial Statue: A Monument of Reconciliation
While the George Floyd Protests of 2020 brought monuments of oppression into light primarily for Black Americans, social justice issues related to Palestinians came into primary focus more recently with the extreme escalation of conflict in the...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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31:49
Reclaiming Place Through Ceremony and Pilgrimage
On September 29, 1526, 498 years ago, the first recorded shipment of captive Africans arrived with Spanish colonizers on the North American mainland in the Sapelo Bay region of Georgia. This is not well-known African America history specificall...
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Season 2
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Episode 12
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1:23:05
The Monument in the Mountain
If you’ve tuned into the show before, then you know that most of our conversations are centered around public art, history and racial justice. The combination of these three things are the essence of what makes this topic so interesting: how do...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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50:37
Art and Activism in Alabama
When it comes to the conversation around Monuments of oppression, there are a few obstacles that usually come into play. To start, there's the Daughters of the Confederacy, the neo-Confederate association for female descendants of Confe...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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1:13:02
Protecting Legacies: Keeping LGBTQ+ Stories Alive with Victor Salvo
Welcome to another episode of The Monumental Project on behalf of the Monuments Toolkit! In honor of Pride Month, we decided to look at an incredible monument collection that does an amazing job championing the LGBTQ+ community. The monuments i...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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52:21
Sculpted Stories: Philadelphia's Public Art and Monument History
In Philadelphia, monuments are more than just stone and bronze. They're time capsules that take us back to pivotal moments in American history. From William Penn, the Liberty Bell, to even the Rocky Balboa statue, Philadelphia boasts a wide ...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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1:01:49
"Reimagining Monuments and Urban Spaces: A Vision for More Inclusive City Planning"
Urban planning has been a hot topic in recent years, with the world's cities experiencing rapid growth and transformation. As populations surge and infrastructure struggles to keep up, urban planners face a myriad of challenges. One such challe...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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50:06
Women in Public Art
Women have been creating public art for centuries, but their contributions have often been overlooked or undervalued. For example, during the Renaissance period, female artists were often relegated to the role of assistants or copyists, and the...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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1:13:26
The Law of the Land with James E Williams Jr.
As stated in our last episode, Controversial monuments and North Carolina unfortunately go hand in hand. The first Confederate memorial in North Carolina, an unnamed Confederate Soldiers Monument in Fayetteville, was built in 1868, only a few y...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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39:39
Monuments of Upliftment with Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson
North Carolina, similar to Virginia, is a state that’s had their fair share of confederate monuments in the public eye. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 173 Confederate symbols across the state, 42 of those monuments stan...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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41:05
A Monumental Wrap-Up
As this year comes to a close, we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the highlights of The Monumental Project. We have 8 exceptional episodes under our belt, speaking to people from all over the coun...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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7:15
Native American Narratives with Laura Harris
When it comes to cultural roots, the west coast is rich with relevance for so many groups of people. One group in particular is Native Americans. New Mexico is no different, with 23 Native American tribes that are federally recognized in the st...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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30:57
How to Fix a City with Bonnie McDonald, Landmarks Illinois
US/ICOMOS prides itself on connecting with outstanding leaders in the field of historic preservation and racial justice. Collaboration is a central value to the Monuments Toolkit, and we believe that the more we learn, the better we can serve t...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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37:15
Conversations with LAXART
Up to this point, the Monuments Toolkit has sat down with leaders in the academic community, activism community and even politics to gather different approaches to the conversation around monuments of oppression. This month we’ll be speaking to...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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45:27
The Richmond Episode
While there are countless examples of controversial monuments around the country, very few have garnered the attention that Richmond has created with Monument Avenue, a fourteen-block-long, tree-lined residential boulevard cutting across centra...
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33:21
Conversations with Mayor Levar Stoney
After the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, citizens of Richmond, Virginia took to the streets to address their problematic statues of confederate figures. Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Matthew Fontaine and later R...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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29:13
Boots on The Ground
“We've all seen videos of citizens around the country taking matters into their own hands when it comes to monuments of oppression.However, rarely do we hear from these individuals and the communities or o...
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30:27
Conversations with Wells Todd, Take Em Down Jacksonville.
Here at US/ICOMOS we are intentional about highlighting the current events and statues that are filling the cultural preservation discourse of today. It is our role to provide listeners with stories and narratives that show them what is really ...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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30:38
An Introduction with Cequyna Moore
What does US/ICOMOS even mean? What exactly are we saying when we say “monuments of oppression”? What is re-contextualization? Knowing these answers are crucial for joining us on this experience. Think of these questions as a compass rose, prov...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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16:26