Monument Lab

photos: Lisa Boughter

RAIR fabricated and installed a temporary monument at Philadelphia’s City Hall designed by the late artist Terry Adkins using over 400 2x4’s for the centerpiece and project headquarters of Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia — a public art and historical research project overseen by curators A. Will Brown, Paul Farber, and Ken Lum, that asks Philadelphians: What is the appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?

“During Monument Lab’s month-long pilot installation, hundreds of participants authored their own public monument proposals for the city, and over 35,000 people engaged with the project . . . Collectively, these proposals contain rich, varied, and evocative accounts of Philadelphia’s histories and possible futures.”