Monumenta, 2018. Participative unique website, dimensions variable by device. http://monumenta.co/
Monumenta is a public and participative web space dedicated to the contemporary anti-monument. An experimental open space that goes beyond national borders—www—and ponders on how contemporary technologies can cater non-prescriptive ways to reimagine the idea of public monument.
It's an experiment on horizontality, dissolving power hierarchies and exclusionary ways that define over the people from "below"; about a power shift; an experiment on equitable development regarding public matters in the creative artistic realm.
Its stance regarding "curating" is that there should be none. Openness is essential, as public monuments should be made «by» the public not «for» the public, and that is what makes it anti—not being determined by any authoritative force. Initially, the idea of Monumenta arose from questioning the process of creating history and cultural identity; what are monuments for and for who? Are they designed to clean the public image of the state?
What monuments are designed to hold the wrongdoings of the state in public consciousness or to cover up the dark side of its past? What fading or lost memories must be recovered uncompromisingly into public awareness? Beyond the phallic-monumental forms that have dominated the public sphere, what other forms, figures, stories, metaphors, identities, aesthetics and uses could conform the monument today?
Contributing to the decline of the monumental tradition that monumentalizes the 'past' and prescribes the relationship of community or nation with its past, Monumenta proposes to empower the public domain in a transnational space defying the forces and borders of the construction of national identity. Monumenta opens a space, in which experimentation can take form in a variety of content inputs, text entries and space to play with all these elements and their signifiers in the construction of collective, personal and autobiographical identities. Intervening in public space and amplifying hidden histories enriches our collective memory.
Collaborator & advisor: Enityaset Rodríguez-Santos.
