Monument Lab Seeks to Support New Commemorative Practices in Communities

Monument Lab is excited to announce Re:Generation – an open call for locally-grounded, grassroots art and justice projects in 2022. We invite applications from collaborative teams rooted within a neighborhood, city, or region in the United States inclusive of Indigenous nations and communities, U.S. territories, and cross-border collectives. Each Re:Generation team will receive a total of $100,000 toward their local commemorative campaign or project. Re:Generation is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Re:Generation open call seeks applications from teams of two or more individuals working together. Each individual team may propose a new or expand upon an existing public-facing art, research, commemoration, and social justice project. Selected teams will also collaborate across Re:Generation sites and in coordination with Monument Lab on a broader campaign of public engagement and participatory data collection in Spring/Summer 2022. We especially encourage applications for projects that have the potential to shift local and regional narratives, particularly in contexts where interventions into the commemorative landscape could foster wider transformations.

Proposed projects might include: reimagining a city’s arts commission; developing a reparations-driven policy for public parks and places; redesigning public spaces with new proposed monuments through the lenses of racial and gender justice; visualizing narratives and networks of diaspora and migration; developing a public curriculum that tells a region’s story of urban renewal, land dispossession, or rural exploitation; creating a digital resource and archive that incorporates oral histories and a virtual interface or public exhibition; devising new art and history installations at sites of legacy monuments; or pursuing a variety of other approaches to creative campaigns.

Through Re:Generation, Monument Lab is seeking a cohort of ten teams that represents a broad diversity of commemorative practices, participatory research models, and geographic contexts. We are especially interested in applications from underrepresented groups and regions. We are committed to growing and sustaining our field by supporting and collaborating with local grassroots artists, educators, organizers, researchers, and memory collectives while building purposeful relationships across locations. Selected teams will operate projects synchronously in Spring/Summer 2022.

Monument Lab recognizes that projects of this nature exist within a broad range of contexts and are most successful when grounded in local communities and developed with consideration for the unique relationships, conditions, and support networks present in each geographical location. We are committed to working with each host community to be in support of the goals of each team. Re:Generation teams will be anchored with a local organization, which will also serve as its fiscal sponsor. Applicants may have a local organization in mind or work with Monument Lab to find a suitable host. Additional training, capacity building, and knowledge sharing for teams across the country will occur in the year leading up to the coordinated initiative, including an in-person retreat in Philadelphia (October 2021).

Re:Generation teams will be selected by a jury of Monument Lab staff, board, and advisors including external curators, artists, educators, and collaborators.

Criteria for Re:Generation teams
Proposed teams will be evaluated on the following core criteria and conditions:

• The team explains how their local or regional commemorative ecosystem is primed for a meaningful intervention and/or structural change.
• The team demonstrates that they have established relationships amongst coalitions and collectives in their city or region—especially those that are rooted within marginalized populations and communities, in and out of institutions, and across social justice movements.
• The team demonstrates that the participatory collection of public ideas is a meaningful part of the proposed project and could be catalytic for their project and the larger monument/commemorative ecosystem.
• The team imagines clear opportunities for developing additional resources and long term relationships that can be leveraged for the team and project.
• The team communicates a clear plan for a virtual and/or physical public footprint for their project and a plan for public engagement and amplification of their project’s outcomes.

*Preference will be given to teams operating independently of major institutions, such as museums, city governments, and universities and colleges.

Key Dates for Re:Generation

• Applications for the Open Call begins July 2, 2021 (Apply Here)
• Informational webinar #1, Friday, July 9, 2021, 12pm EST (Register Here)
• Informational webinar #2, Thursday, July 22, 2021, 12pm EST (Register Here)
• Applications are due by July 31, 2021 by 11:59 pm EST.
• The 10 teams will be announced in Fall 2021.
• Members of each team will gather for an in-person gathering in Philadelphia in October 2021, with monthly virtual meetings through Spring 2022.
• Public projects and campaigns at all 10 locations will kick off in Spring 2022 and run through Fall 2022.

Application Requirements
Interested applicants must submit the following materials through the application form. Before applying, you will need to upload materials to your preferred file sharing platform and generate a shared public link for each item.

1. Curriculum vitae or resume for each team member
2. Two References (names, emails, and relationship to your team)
3. 500 word statement of interest that addresses this specific opportunity, as well as its potential impact on ongoing efforts in your local/regional context.
4. 500 word statement of your team’s proposed local project, including how you envision the role of public participation and research for this project.
5. 500 word statement that addresses your team’s internal working relationship and local collaborators, coalitions, and a potential host organization.
6. Social Media Handles
7. Up to 10 pages of previous/ongoing work samples compiled into a single PDF (Samples can include images, embedded links to videos, animations, screenshots of personal and project websites, published writing samples, articles or blog entries, and press coverage).

Any questions about eligibility are welcome and can be addressed to research@monumentlab.com