Mellon Foundation commits $250M to reimagine monuments

by sadia_badhon | October 20, 2020 6:25 am

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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation[2], the national’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities, announced a five-year, $250-million grant effort, the “Monuments Project,” to transform the way the country’s histories are told in public spaces.

By reimagining and rebuilding commemorative spaces that celebrate and affirm the historical contributions of the many diverse communities that make up the United States, Mellon’s commitment builds on two years of monument grant-making, and comes at a moment of national reckoning on the power and influence of monuments, the foundation said in a press release.

The Monuments Project is a signature initiative aligned with the foundation’s new strategic framework and mission announced in June. Grants made under the new monuments initiative will fall under three areas of activity:

• funding new monuments, memorials, or historic storytelling spaces;
• contextualizing existing monuments or memorials through installations, research, and education; and
• relocating existing monuments or memorials.

The Mellon initiative seeks to broaden the understanding of commemorative spaces and their possibilities and will include not only memorials, historical markers, and public statuary, but also storytelling spaces such as museums and art installations.

“By providing key support to visionary artists and cultural organizations that seek to reimagine how fundamental stories and experiences may be publicly commemorated in new monuments and memorials, this unprecedented Mellon commitment will help inform our collective understanding of our country’s profoundly diverse and weighty history and ensure that those who have not been taught this history can learn it in the public square,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Mellon Foundation president. “This effort will further ensure that the many communities that have shaped the United States have greater opportunity to see themselves in the fabric of our remarkable American story.”

“Monuments and memorials echo with legacy, loyalty, and love in ways that are heard across multiple lifetimes,” said Ava DuVernay, writer, director, producer, and independent film distributor. “But whose legacy? Loyalty to whom? Love of what? For too long, the answers to these questions have been obscured by privilege, power, and politics. But no more. The Monuments Project is a buoyant, brave, and brilliant step in liberating the power of story to reveal who more of us are, what more people value, and what all kinds of people from different walks of life want to remember. New legacy. New loyalty. New love.”

The Monuments Project has been developed by Alexander after years of discussion, research, and intellectual exploration. She has been actively engaged in the project’s advance since she became president in 2018. During that time, the foundation issued $25 million in grants to help diversify the American public history and memory landscape. This includes funding to support the building of the interpretive center at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which remembers the lynchings of Black people in the US; to support the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture initiative to expand the pipeline of artists with the expertise to complete public commissions; to preserve important African American sites via the National Trust for Historic Preservation; and to create a new monument to honor the abolitionist Lyons family in Central Park.

The first major grant issued under the new $250-million Monuments Project will be a three-year, $4-million grant to support Monument Lab in Philadelphia. Monument Lab is an independent public art and history studio that works with cities throughout the country—including Los Angeles, Newark, Richmond, and St. Louis—in collaboration with local artists, activists, and community leaders to re-envision American public spaces through stories of social justice and equity. Among the work this Mellon grant will support is a definitive audit of the existing national monument landscape across the United States.

Source URL: https://www.constructionspecifier.com/mellon-foundation-commits-250m-to-reimagine-monuments/

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