Where: University of Greenwich, Lecture Theatre 0004, Ground Floor, 10 Stockwell St, London SE10 9BD

When: Wednesday, 4th September 2024, 09.00 – 18.30

Programme: Here

Register: Here

Culture& is delighted to produce Time, Space, and Monumentality, an immersive and interactive conference in partnership with the University of Greenwich Galleries. The dynamic artistic and academic symposium is part of Culture&’s Time, Space, and Empire programme at the V&A Wedgwood Collection in Stoke-on-Trent, the University of Greenwich, Royal Museums
Greenwich, and St Alfege Church Greenwich.

Historical monuments are the subject of increasing dispute, significantly since the advent of the Rhodes Must Fall protests in South Africa against monuments to Cecil Rhodes at the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford, as well as the global Black Lives Matter Movement that followed the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. An analysis of the timeline of conflicts around contested monuments since 2015 reveals a correlation between political rhetoric and legislative responses to protests deployed by politicians and lawmakers in the USA, UK, and Australia.
The previous UK Government’s response to this ongoing dispute through the ‘Retain and Explain’ policy may never neutralise the enduring concerns about contested monuments. Yet emergent contemporary, unauthorised versions of monumentality created by artists, academics and activists suggest exciting alternatives to traditional statuary. The conference focuses on four key themes:
● What is the future of statues?
● Who should we memorialise and why?
● What is the legal validity of the UK Government’s ‘Retain and Explain’ policy?
● Are there alternative forms of monumentality to those cast in stone and bronze?
Through academic papers, visual interventions, an exhibition, and performances by artists, Culture& presents an eclectic programme that highlights new ways of perceiving statues and their relevance. By sharing new research, experiences, and artistic and academic developments on commemoration, we hope to provoke the imagination of new potentials.