The Relic Report, 2020
Project Type: Research, Writing, Graphic Design, Social Practice, Activism
The Relic Report is an unofficial municipal study of San Francisco’s monuments and memorials and their intersection with our country’s racist history. The two-part publication documents a playful investigation of monuments in the city’s civic art collection and reflects on what to do next. A research guide of sorts, part one intended to provide fodder for critical conversations and kicked off a public comment survey which called for SF residents to respond to the presented research. Volume 2 is a creative culmination of the participants’ reflections aswell as the taskforce’s Recommendations for New Monuments.
In addition to researching, designing and publishing this report, I gathered a group of artists, activists and cultural workers to establish a taskforce called New Monuments Taskforce, which oversees the process of public engagement and serves as a braintrust for NMT’s initiatives. By creating seats at the proverbial table I introduced community-led processes into the political spectrum of monument making - a process known for being top down.
This project is part the Shaping the Past Initiative by Monument Lab x Goethe Institut, an international art initiative that addresses whom, what and how we remember in public spaces.
