Posted:
July 7, 2017
Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue and Address Controversies
Chairs: Harriet Senie, The City College of New York, The City University of New York, [email protected] ; Sierra Rooney, Stony Brook University, The State University of New York, [email protected]
Abstracts due to chairs on August 14, 2017
“Teachable Monuments” is an initiative begun under the aegis of Public Art Dialogue in order to use public monuments as a focus for civic and civil dialogues in schools at every level from kindergarten to university, and also to develop guidelines for public officials in communities to help resolve controversies regarding public monuments. These guidelines would include a step-by-step guide to researching the historical monument, as well as organizing activities and conversations for students, community groups, civil servants, and politicians. We are interested in proposals that analyze specific controversies with various outcomes, as well as examples of monuments that convey outdated or unwelcome value systems without prompting debate. Strategies might include inaction, removal, (re)interpretation, or commission of a contemporary “counter” monument. Additionally, we are interested in suggestions on how “Teachable Monuments” might achieve its varied goals, as well as theoretical proposals about how these issues might best be contextualized. We expect “Teachable Monuments” to result in publications beyond the guidelines, possibly an issue of the journal Public Art Dialogue and/or an anthology that will address these issues in theoretical as well as pragmatic ways.
For detailed submission guidelines please consult: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/call-for-participation.pdf