Open AccessAnti-monuments to the Immemorial. Exploring the how, why, and what next of our relationship to our environment.
Author(s) -
J. Harold Stanley
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the journal of public space
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2206-9658
DOI - 10.32891/jps.v4i3.1227
Subject(s) - temporality , ideology , transformative learning , narrative , power (physics) , deep time , subject (documents) , aesthetics , history , public space , sociology , visual arts , art , politics , literature , law , epistemology , philosophy , political science , engineering , architectural engineering , paleontology , pedagogy , physics , quantum mechanics , library science , computer science , biology
Monuments typify human habitation of place, memorialising ideologies of the prevailing power from moments in time. In recent decades, their form has undergone a revolution. Along with their transformation from the heavy permanence of monumentality, to the temporality of anti-monumental form — subject matter has also diametrically shifted from representing the state, to representing the marginalised. My practice-based research explores further the anti-monuments’ potential for social activism — to expand memorialisation beyond a human-centric narrative, to acknowledge the immemorial forces that shape place over deep time. An iterative creative process informs the major body of site-responsive works Human/Nature undertaken as Artist in Residence at Kyneton Botanic Gardens in regional Victoria, Australia, presented at the Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial 2018.Drawing on the site’s deep time environmental and ideological origins as transformative forces, I created a series of anti-monuments: activating public space as an experimental laboratory to explore and discover the how, why, and what next of our relationship to our environment.