The Battle Is Joined: Contemporary Art and Contested Memorial Ecologies

Amy Bowman‐McElhone, Carrie Fonder, Joshua Aiken and Karyn Olivier

Social Science Quarterly, 2021, vol. 102, issue 3, 1179-1198

Abstract: Objective This article assesses contemporary artists whose creative practices operate within the contested space of memorial ecologies in order to frame monuments, heritage landscapes, and memorial ecologies within artistic discourses. Method Through interdisciplinary methodologies including artist interviews, art historical and humanities‐based analyses and artistic practice, this article assumes a hybrid form of scholarly essay, interview, and visual intervention. Result This article resulted in a collaborative project that critically examines public representations of memory narratives from an art historical lens, and functions as a creative text that visualizes slippages of narrative, form, and meaning paralleling the operations, gestures, and strategies of visual artists addressing monument discourses. Conclusion We conclude that artists prompt critical and unexpected interrogations of monument discourses and memorial ecologies that serve to deconstruct, critique, and disrupt hegemonic narratives of these objects and relations, and work to construct new interpretative strategies and alternative models of understanding.

Date: 2021
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