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The Monumental Shadows series plans to address seven monuments critically in different European cities that perpetuate a colonial mentality in public spaces. Artist duo Various & Gould initiated this project in collaboration with SAVVY Contemporary's initiative Colonial Neighbours, a participatory archive and research project on German colonial history. The interview centers on their first participatory art project, Monumental Shadows Berlin (2021), focusing on the fifteen-meter-high national monument Otto von Bismarck (Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal). Reinhold Begas's neo-baroque bronze statue (1897–1901), originally located at Königsplatz, was relocated to Großer Tiergarten in 1938. While Otto von Bismarck is celebrated for unifying Germany, his role in European colonialism in Africa is now under critical examination. The Berlin project (Fig. 1) used the paper-mâché technique to cast a new Bismarck monument, only to rip and charge it with new meanings, symbolically challenging colonialism and its modern implications. Four approaches ("shadows") were used—intervention, performance, workshop, and panel discussion. This interview explores how artistic intervention at the monument serves as a communicative tool and delves into the challenges artists face when addressing colonial monuments, including navigating the bureaucracies of heritage protection policies, the time-consuming funding process, artists' multitasking as project managers, moral concerns, and countering racial encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toppling the statue of Queen Victoria in July 2021 did not end the reign of colonialist memory on the Manitoba Legislature's grounds, but simply marked the removal of its most accessible symbol. This paper examines the sculptural programme of the Legislative Assembly and how its engagement with the classical world glorifies the role of European settlers while erasing the contributions and experiences of Indigenous people. It details the exclusionary narrative told by these statues through the lens of ancient art and modern architectural history, tying Beaux-Arts architecture and the City Beautiful movement to the White supremacist classicizing aesthetics of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It argues that the imagery used on the Legislative Building was intended to recruit White settlers into a colonial and capitalist vision of Manitoba. More specifically, it examines the connections between images from antiquity and the idea of Manitoba as the centre of a powerful colonial enterprise, through an architectural nostalgia that distorted the realities of both the ancient past and the present. Using the ancient Roman practice of damnatio memoriae ("condemnation of memory"), this paper contends that statuary like that found on the Legislative Building offers a pretense of permanency and authority that has in reality been challenged as long as monuments have been used for this purpose. Ultimately it considers more dynamic forms of commemoration, such as the orange flags planted around the plinth where Queen Victoria once stood, and how communal memory can be more responsive and reflective of the people it represents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monuments and statues are forms of commemoration. They typically pay tribute to people or events and aim to serve as a permanent marker, a link between present and past generations, committing them to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning. While commemorations can be beneficial in terms of recognising a legacy of the past and helping foster relationships between opposing groups, they can also be divisive and painful, failing to acknowledge other dimensions of historical fact and further hardening the boundaries between groups in conflict. Essentially, what we choose to commemorate reflects what we as a society actually value. This paper focuses on the unsettled fates of the Captain Cook statue that stands with prominence in Hyde Park, Warrane, and other colonial monuments in Australia. It also discusses the emotionality surrounding such commemorations. We question whether Cook's actual achievements constitute the notoriety that has been bestowed upon him. A range of commentators have put forward ideas around what to do about the Cook statue which we discuss while also considering what the future might look like if the truth of colonial history is known and open conversations can be had. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the visual culture of the Congo Free State (CFS) have focused overwhelmingly yet narrowly on the "atrocity" photograph used to criticize Leopold II's colonial misrule. This article presents a new picture of the visual culture of Leopold II's Congo Free State by examining a broader, more heterogeneous range of fin de siècle images of varied provenance that comprised the visual culture of the CFS. These include architecture, paintings, African artwork, and public monuments, many of which were positive, pro-Leopoldian images emphasizing a favorable view of colonialism. The visual culture of the CFS was imbued with recurring themes of violence, European heroism, and anti-Arab sentiment, and emerged from a unique, transnational, back-and-forth process whereby Leopold and his critics instrumentalized images to counter each other and achieve their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we undertake a semiotic reading of the Campanile Clock Tower Monument in Port Elizabeth. The monument was built in 1920 to commemorate the arrival of the British Settlers in 1820. The theoretical departure of our analysis is the five narrative codes identified by Roland Barthes in his unconventional reading of Sarrasine. The article shows the extent to which the observer (reader?) is able to encode the monument with new textual possibilities as well as reading it against the grain within a new context. The original symbolism of the monument as a symbol of colonial enterprise and white English-speaking South African identity is also deconstructed in the process.

The Columbus statue in Barcelona is visited by millions of tourists each year and is one of the most well-known memorials dedicated to the 'discovery' of the Americas. By looking at the productive nature of memorialisation, this paper questions this narrative of discovery. It looks at the history of the conquest of America as a moment of violence and massacre. Following the idea of coloniality of power and coloniality of being, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between coloniality and commemoration by analysing the different meanings of the statue of Columbus in Barcelona. I problematize and reconceptualise the monument from a decolonial perspective that highlights the subjugated knowledge of colonial conquest. I utilise the notion of epistemologies of ignorance to highlight how the statue is a representation of the master narrative of colonialism and consequently how this narrative acts to silence counter narratives of Columbus and Spanish history. Colonial monuments such as the Columbus statue are a tribute to on-going coloniality and the continuation of violence against racial 'Others'. Thus, what is presented as a normative tribute to discovery is re-presented in this paper as a memorial to war and genocide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses debates around the fate of antiquated symbols of colonial domination in postcolonial societies. The handling of apartheid material culture still generates controversy more than 15 years after the country’s first democratic elections. Built in 1949 to commemorate the Great Trek into the interior of the country, the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria has stood as the embodiment of Afrikaner nationalism and mythology. A number of factors prevented the demolition of the site, including the spirit of national reconciliation. In order to remain relevant and to secure state funding, staff members at the Voortrekker Monument have attempted to map onto the original exclusionary imagery a more inclusive narrative that hinges on the protection of ‘minority rights’ to cultural preservation. This case study sheds light on the way political transitions create openings for the interrogation of colonial monuments – whether they should be destroyed, revised or left untouched – and the development of a postcolonial memorial landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article we undertake a semiotic reading of the Campanile Clock Tower Monument in Port Elizabeth. The monument was built in 1920 to commemorate the arrival of the British Settlers in 1820. The theoretical departure of our analysis is the five narrative codes identified by Roland Barthes in his unconventional reading of Sarrasine. The article shows the extent to which the observer (reader?) is able to encode the monument with new textual possibilities as well as reading it against the grain within a new context. The original symbolism of the monument as a symbol of colonial enterprise and white English-speaking South African identity is also deconstructed in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]