POSTER CAMPAIGN
Our team, a collective of designers, artists, urbanists, and educators, has been working since July 2017 to pair scholarly narratives and locally commissioned artwork in telling the stories that are too often lost or obscured when New Orleans history is recounted. These posters are available for everyone, free of charge, at various businesses around the city.
installations
During Phase 1 of Paper Monuments, we have been installing large-form versions of our posters on walls around New Orleans. We gather volunteers together paste these stories to the walls of the city, so that passersby can learn from these hidden histories.
public proposals
Public Proposals are the core of Paper Monuments’ process, a continually expanding pool of prospective monuments, memorials and public art that range from the intimate to the epic and tell the stories that are important to New Orleans’ residents. Paper Monuments’ goal is not to decide what individual belongs at the top of a pillar, but to join and expand a conversation about who and what we remember, what events have shaped our city and our lives, and what places and movements matter to us.
EVENTS
Paper Monuments has hosted various events and workshops. Stories at the Crossroads, pictured here, featured storytellers, poets, musicians and activists, who shared their words on the steps of an empty pedestal. Artists have battled at out Story Board events, people from all over the city came together for History Unbound at the New Orleans Public Library.
the paper trail
The Paper Trail is our newspaper, which we distribute at businesses all around the city. The newspaper and blog feature new posters, various public proposals, and our latest events and installations.
The movement to remove confederate monuments throughout the city of New Orleans, led by the Take Em' Down NOLA Coalition, has revealed deep-seated divisions in our communities and sparked important conversations: about the ties between symbols and systems, the links between the present and the past, the differences in how we experience our built environment, and what stories we tell and remember.
We view a community-driven, participatory process for the redevelopment of these sites and for the expansion of public art in public spaces throughout New Orleans as a critical means to continue and expand those conversations, and to ensure that when future generations question the intentions behind and the purpose of future monuments, the answers are ones of which they can be proud.
Paper Monuments Posters and Installations
