Reading Response: Seeing the Past in Present Tense

This was a really cool article. I found it to be a very informative account of the potential dangers or side effects that monuments can have on how a society will continue to look back on historical events as time marches on.

Especially monuments that directly tie to location-based history. The idea of a metaphorical detour is a very interesting way of explaining the potential uses of monuments, but in the way it can reshape history in the eye of the beholder is kind of scary, in my opinion. The example of the Emancipation Monument and how it serves to flatten and alter our common historical understanding is not really doing citizens a service. It would probably shock 90% of Americans to learn that Abe Lincoln didn't actually emancipate slaves as a statement toward civil rights and equality- but instead only as a way to confuse the south, drum up support for the Union forces and help them win the war. The fact that the emancipation proclamation only freed the confederate slaves (and the confederates didn't recognize laws passed in the Union) while still leaving slavery legal in the Union would probably lead most to think you were either playing a joke on them or make them outright angry.

The story about the Monument Against War, Fascism, and Violence in Germany was another interesting story about how monuments can fail to achieve their goal if they are designed to disappear from the public consciousness. The fact that this monument had been forgotten in less than 20 years from its creation is kind of disappointing and the fact that the only people who seemed to notice it at all were the people who were intent on defacing it. Designing an effective monument seems like a balancing act between over-simplifying an idea or message to the point that it leaves viewers with a misunderstanding of the historical event being memorialized and making a monument that is too easily forgotten or overlooked by the public it's intended to serve.

For my monument, I intend to make a much broader and simplified message. I don't want to reference a single historical event- I am striving to make something that is universally understood by as many people as possible, with no words- just simple graphics that describe modern human concerns.