Monuments are a form of public archive. Certain monuments unjustly commemorate structure, history, and a society of those who persecute, or those have been persecuted by a divisive oppressive system embedded with white supremacy. When it comes to re-contextualization, western European styles of art are adapted by marginalized groups of people to comment on slave labor used to produce past monuments. The depiction of oppressed groups in the forefront of our public archive comes from a growing social outrage towards the problematic nature of confederate statues - as well as artists who come from a lineage of the disenfranchised who desire a public representation of truth that embodies a plethora of social and artistic hemispheres.
While reading some of the monuments pieces I felt as if each of them had something that they needed to prove. For example, for the Tate piece felt the need to expose what history has done to people. Each level exposed how much each person was taken advantage of in service of someone else. For the rumors of war piece exposed the whole idealism of the past resurrecting a past historical leader to make sure that the event does not happen again. The Bracero monument exposed all of the work that the people of that time had done in order to make sure that not another person is taken advantage of again. But truth be told, all of these monuments have come with some sort of backlash. The bracero monument had gotten criticism for stating that the braceros were free to do what they wished. From what the article had stated that was not the truth. It was merely one persons interpretation of what a bracero was, b...
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