An Empty Pedestal is an Invitation

2025

"Our statues and streets have never been static – they are dynamic and fluid sites for political education and transformation." - Monument Lab

Following protests and repeated vandalism of a Christopher Columbus statue in 2020, the city of Providence removed the statue from its pedestal in the Elmwood neighborhood. In 2023, the statue was gifted to the city of Johnston, RI, where the statue became a symbol of reactionary culture. The responses of the two locations raise important questions, namely: Who can politicize Columbus? And to what ends? An Empty Pedestal is an attempt to re-politicize these events, and reframe the pedestal where Columbus once stood as an invitation to imagine otherwise. 100 zines and small graphics were distributed around Elmwood, providing this history and inviting residents to submit to a digital archive. Additionally, two 1:1 scale posters of the statue and the 100 zines conceptualize and demonstrate that anti-monumental, participatory gestures can be even bigger (literally) than the monumental.

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