Best Monument Lab Podcasts (2025)

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Stewarding Sound and Ancestral Memory with Nathan Young 42:43

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2+ y ago42:43

42:43

Paul Farber: You are listening to Monument Lab Future Memory where we discuss the future of monuments and the state of public memory in the US and across the globe. You can support the work of Monument Lab by visiting monumentlab.com, following us on social @Monument_Lab, or subscribing to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Li Sumpter: O…

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MING MEDIA is the Message with Jon Kaufman and El Sawyer 50:15

2+ y ago50:15

50:15

Li: Welcome Jon Kaufman and El Sawyer to Future Memory. Jon: Thank you for having us. El: Thank you, cool name. Li: So what's your origin story? How did Jon and El become Ming Media? Jon: It's an interesting story and there's not really one particular magical spark, but it definitely was an organic process from my perspective, right? El his own jou…

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Teaching Truth with Jesse Hagopian 48:56

2+ y ago48:56

48:56

Li Sumpter: So welcome back to another episode of Future Memory. My guest today is Jesse Hagopian. He is a Seattle-based educator and the author of the upcoming Teach Truth: The Attack on Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Antiracist Education. Hagopian is an organizer with the Zinn Education Project and co-editor of the books Black Lives …

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Plot of Land - Ep. 10: We Have to be Creative as Hell 1:10:21

2+ y ago1:10:21

1:10:21

Concluding the Plot of Land series, we look at the work being done across the United States to repair our relationship with the land, from the Tongva conservancy in Los Angeles to the Sea Islands of South Carolina. What will it take to imagine a radically different future? With the stakes rising along with the temperature, what is the scale of chan…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 9: Rotten Eggs & Gasoline 1:09:33

2+ y ago1:09:33

1:09:33

We return to Louisiana and the Joneses, where in recent decades family members have moved away for work and to escape the increasingly toxic air and water leaking from the neighboring chemical plants of Cancer Alley. As stronger hurricanes and vanishing wetlands reconfigure Louisiana’s topography, new industries continue old patterns of environment…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 8: 66 Acres Down by the River 1:07:57

2+ y ago1:07:57

1:07:57

We learn the incredible story of Sedonia Dennis, a woman once enslaved in Louisiana, who came to own a piece of the plantation that had once claimed ownership of her family. And we explore how, over time, the plantation economy gave way to the petrochemical industry. Join us as we spend time with Sedonia Dennis’s descendant, Jazzy Miller who is doc…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 7: The Sad Part Is That It Was Successful 1:21:24

2+ y ago1:21:24

1:21:24

We’re looking at what happened after subsidized affordable housing programs expired in the 2000s on New York’s Roosevelt Island. Some residents managed to buy in, build equity and stability. Others experienced precarious tenancy or displacement while an ongoing influx of wealthier residents is changing the face of the island. We ask the question, c…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 6: Tucked Between Those Two Boroughs 1:05:59

2+ y ago1:05:59

1:05:59

New York’s Roosevelt Island was imagined as an idyllic, multi-racial, multi-income community, developed as part of the social housing movement in the 60s and 70s. But by the 1980s, socially-minded investments in housing were overtaken by neoliberal policy. We talk to current-day and displaced residents to see how this change affected them, while lo…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 5: We’re Out Here at our Homeland 1:20:26

2+ y ago1:20:26

1:20:26

Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Katherine Nagasawa @Kat_Nagasawa, Anya Groner @anyagroner Interviewees: Residents Nate Bradford, Sr. Nate Bradford, Jr.; Instagram: @gline_ranch Theola Cudjoe Jones Fannie Washington Patricia Harris Amanda Bradford Henrietta Hicks Damien McCormick Dr. Willard Tillman Kendra Field Ph.D.; Twitter: @TuftsRCD…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 4: This Arc of Very Fertile Land 53:59

2+ y ago53:59

53:59

Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Katherine Nagasawa @Kat_Nagasawa, Anya Groner @anyagroner Interviewees: Residents Nate Bradford, Sr. Nate Bradford, Jr. ; Instagram: @gline_ranch Theola Cudjoe Jones Fannie Washington Lucy Ellis Patricia Harris Henrietta Hicks Dr. Francis Marzett Shelton, Ed.D. (Mayor) Damien McCormick Claudio Saunt, Ph.D…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 3: Just Oil Wells on These City Streets 44:16

2+ y ago44:16

44:16

What happens when the place we call home, the communities we form around it, and our sense of safety, is at the mercy of forces far outside of our control? We visit Long Beach, in Los Angeles, where oil and gas pipelines have jeopardized people’s homes and security. Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Mark Nieto @COMBATmusic Interviewees: L…

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Plot of Land - Ep. 2: They’re Trying to Lure Homeowners to Sell 40:22

2+ y ago40:22

40:22

Have you ever seen billboards on the highway offering cash for houses? Has a stranger called you offering money for your home sight unseen? In Plot of Land’s second episode, we wade into the world of housing speculation, considering how private equity markets and real estate investment trusts have transformed the places we literally call home. How …

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Plot of Land - Ep. 1: Location, Location, Location 46:02

2+ y ago46:02

46:02

Plot of Land dives into the history of land ownership through the emerging future: real estate in the Metaverse. In creating virtual land, we could make literally anything true, from universal public space to zero gravity, so why have people chosen to replicate real-world patterns of land use when we know they are highly inequitable, exploitative, …

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Plot of Land - Trailer 2:08

2+ y ago2:08

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Plot of Land is a podcast mini-series by Monument Lab that explores how land ownership and housing in the United States have been shaped by power, public memory, and privatization. Over the last year, we have assembled a team of storytellers and reporters to explore the invisible forces that shape both the land and story of this country. The podcas…

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Future Memory Takes Flight with Tatyana Fazlalizadeh 37:48

2+ y ago37:48

37:48

This episode, co-host Li Sumpter, caught up with multidisciplinary artist, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh at the onset of her mural project, Flight. Tatyana sees flying as a metaphor for liberation, escape, and transformation. She informs and illuminates this vision through the experiences, hopes, and dreams of everyday people who dare to look up. Li and Tat…

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Reading the Rocky Statue with Paul Farber 40:15

2+ y ago40:15

40:15

In this episode, co-host Li Sumpter turns the mic to Future Memory co-host and Monument Lab Director, Paul Farber, to go behind-the-scenes on the production of his new podcast project The Statue from WHYY digital studios and the NPR podcast network. The series investigates one of Philly’s most monumental destinations visited by millions from around…

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I is for Institute, Episode 7: Conversation with Marie Hélène Pereira, Linda Goode Bryant, and Marielle Ingram 1:15:21

3y ago1:15:21

1:15:21

By ICA

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Episode 6: I is for Institute with Mari Spirito, Executive Director and Curator, Protocinema 49:46

3y ago49:46

49:46

In this episode, Mari Spirito, Executive Director, and Curator of Protocinema, a self-described ambulatory and cross-cultural art organization that commissions and presents site-aware art around the world, discusses the complexities of working across geographies and ruminates on the importance of relationship building in the creation of alternative…

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A Crack in the Hourglass: An Ongoing COVID-19 Memorial with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Sekou Cooke (Live at the Brooklyn Museum) 37:37

3y ago37:37

37:37

For this episode, we take a trip to the Brooklyn Museum with Future Memory co-host Paul Farber where he moderated a program for the popular discussion series Brooklyn Talks. How can we memorialize and visualize the extraordinary loss of life caused by COVID-19? Farber explores this question in a dynamic exchange between Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Sek…

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I is for Institute, Episode 5: Alison Burstein and Rebecca Cleman 52:51

3y ago52:51

52:51

To commemorate the 50th anniversaries of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and The Kitchen, Rebecca Cleman, EAI’s Director, and Alison Burstein, Curator at The Kitchen, reflect on their shared organizational histories in this live recorded event (at The Kitchen in May 2022) to celebrate the launch of the publication Broadcasting: EAI at ICA. They disc…

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Building a Monument for Dr. Maya Angelou with Lava Thomas 18:20

3y ago18:20

18:20

This episode, co-host Paul Farber speaks to multidisciplinary artist Lava Thomas. They catch up about a major project a long time in the making – a monument honoring Dr. Maya Angelou – prolific poet, Civil Rights activist, and American memoirist. The monument is slated for installation outside of San Francisco’s main public library in the near futu…

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Leaving a Future Record Behind with Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson of ConsenSIS 50:55

3y ago50:55

50:55

We kickoff a new season of the Monument Lab podcast Future Memory with Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson, two renowned former poet laureates of Philadelphia. Wisher and Mayson are the creators of ConsenSIS, a project that summons “sisterly history” to preserve the past and present literary legacy of Black women and femme poets in Philadelphia. C…

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I is for Institute, Episode 4: Ken Lum and Paul Farber, Monument Lab 1:04:10

3y ago1:04:10

1:04:10

In this episode, Alex Klein, ICA's Dorothy and Steven R. Weber CHE '60 curator, is joined by James E. Britt Jr., former DAJ Director of Public Engagement at ICA, in conversation with Ken Lum and Paul M. Farber, about their work with and experiences co-founding Monument Lab–an organization based in Philadelphia that seeks to shine light on and desta…

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I is for Institute, Episode 3: Lulani Arquette and Flint Jamison 48:12

3+ y ago48:12

48:12

In this episode our guests Lulani Arquette, President and CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF), and Flint Jamison, a co-founder and Board Chair of Yale Union (a non-profit contemporary art center), both in Portland, Oregon, recount Yale Union’s decision to dissolve as an organization and to transfer the building and land over to th…

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I is for Institute, Episode 2: Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Kunstinstituut Melly 1:09:16

3+ y ago1:09:16

1:09:16

What’s in a name? One of the core questions at the center of I is for Institute is explored this week in the second episode out today. Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Director of the Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam and host, Alex Klein, ICA’s Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber (CHE '60) provide background and transparency around the internal decision process …

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I is for Institute Podcast Trailer 0:59

4y ago0:59

0:59

Welcome to the I is for Institute podcast. My name is Alex Klein, the Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber (CHE'60) Curator at ICA, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In this series, you will hear from our colleagues working in contemporary arts organizations around the world about their individual perspect…

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I is for Institute, Episode 1: Sepake Angiama, Iniva 52:58

4y ago52:58

52:58

By ICA

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Monumental “Local Diaspora” in St. Louis with MADAD’s Damon Davis, Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, and De Nichols 54:36

5y ago54:36

54:36

Welcome back to the Monument Lab podcast. This episode, we focus on St. Louis. For the past two years, Monument Lab has worked closely with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, mapping monuments in St. Louis. That includes traditional landmarks and unofficial sites of memory, whether they are existing, potential, or erased. To mark the close of our projec…

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Museums are Not Neutral with Movement Co-Founders La Tanya S. Autry and Mike Murawski 1:00:22

5+ y ago1:00:22

1:00:22

The phrase “Museums Are Not Neutral” is both a hashtag and the rallying words of a movement. This mantra has already changed the way museums around the world are visited, curated, and protested. Amplified by our guests Art Worker La Tanya S. Autry and Museum Educator Mike Murawski, the hashtag #MuseumsAreNotNeutral has been engaged more than a mill…

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Commemorating the 1918 Flu Pandemic with Mütter Museum Organizer Nancy Hill 50:49

5+ y ago50:49

50:49

What do you do when you’re fighting for survival and balancing grief on a societal level at the same time? This is a question many of us are facing now and asking ourselves in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the historical reference points we can access are stories from the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Dubbed the Spanish Flu, the deadly pandemic k…

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Word Sound Power: A Self Determined Lexicon for Commemorative Justice with Historical Strategist Free Egunfemi Bangura 1:09:05

5+ y ago1:09:05

1:09:05

In Richmond, Virginia, you encounter monuments, old and new – on Monument Avenue one-hundred-year-old Confederate generals stand alongside, since 1996, a statue honoring African American Tennis icon Arthur Ashe. Nearby, Kehinde Wiley’s new statue, Rumours of War, sits outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a new permanent sculpture moved there f…

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Bearing Witness in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands with Conservationist Laiken Jordahl 39:24

5+ y ago39:24

39:24

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a staggering number of businesses and much of our public life are paused across the country in the interest of health and safety. There is one place where activity has amped up since the shutdowns – construction sites along the U.S. Mexico border. Our guest is conservationist Laiken Jordahl, who works as a cam…

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No Return to Normal with Artist Mel Chin 45:41

5+ y ago45:41

45:41

In times of crisis, in times of connection, artist Mel Chin makes his mark. A 2019 MacArthur Genius Award recipient, Chin’s artwork has been featured in major museums and biennials, in Times Square, the Halls of Congress, the TV show Melrose Place, and Monument Lab’s 2017 exhibition in the middle of Philadelphia’s City Hall. When you see Chin at wo…

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Expanding Monuments with Regina Agu; New Monuments for New Cities Part 5 39:36

6y ago39:36

39:36

Regina Agu has been researching and engaging green spaces in Houston, including Emancipation Park, especially to understand the legacy of communities of color in these spaces. As an artist, in a city where zoning laws, or lack thereof, impacts preservation, Agu also has seen the ways artists are on the forefront of innovating around and along with …

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Monument to Lucy Gonzalez Parsons with Eric García; New Monuments for New Cities Part 4 35:57

6y ago35:57

35:57

Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam, two figures who show up often as stand-ins for American politics in editorial cartoons and graphic narratives. But read between the images and the lines, and you can see how those symbols evolve with artists incorporating them to take on challenges of democracy. For artist, Eric García, based in Chicago, be brings these and…

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Public Noise with Paul Ramírez Jonas; New Monuments for New Cities Part 1 41:45

6y ago41:45

41:45

When you think of monuments and public art projects that provoke, that are critical and participatory, you think of Paul Ramírez Jonas. Born in California, raised in Honduras, and now a professor at New York’s Hunter College, he has produced renowned projects including Keys to the City, Public Trust, and the Commons, which have been huge inspiratio…

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Missing Democracy with Coco Guzman; New Monuments for New Cities Part 3 35:57

6y ago35:57

35:57

Over the last few months, it has been a treat to get to know Coco Guzman, a Spanish-Canadian queer artist based in Toronto. Guzman draws, documents, and gathers stories that are public and intimate. They created Missing Democracy – modeled after pet posters posted on utility poles and community bulletin boards – where a Grumpy Cat stands in for dem…

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Reclaimed Water CC'd With Nicole Awai; New Monuments for New Cities Part 2 38:51

6y ago38:51

38:51

When looking for monuments, most of the time we look up. But many artists have employed other strategies, from the ground up, to use concrete, bricks, or infrastructure to make their presence felt. Nicole Awai did just that . She is an artist and educator, born in Trinidad, based in NYC and Austin, where she teaches at the University of Austin. She…

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“Not Peaceable and Quiet” with Counterpublic Artists with Matt Joynt, Anthony Romero, and Josh Rios 54:14

6+ y ago54:14

54:14

This episode of Monument Lab, we recorded live from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, where Monument Lab has a research residency this summer. As a part of Public Iconographies, we are mapping monuments of St. Louis with a research team at the museum, in parks, and public spaces around the whole city, as a part of the Pulitzer’s Striking P…

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Erasing the Border and the Wall in Our Heads with Social Sculptor Ana Teresa Fernández 1:00:10

6+ y ago1:00:10

1:00:10

This week, news leaked of the Trump administration’s deployment of an unspecified number of military service members to paint stretches of the border reinforcements in the California town of Calexico. The goal: to improve the border’s "aesthetic appearance." There’s precedent to this. Wall builders go to great lengths to hide and distract from the …

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The New Gatekeepers: Will Google decide how we remember Syria’s Civil War? 1:06:58

6+ y ago1:06:58

1:06:58

On Monument Lab’s bulletin, we recently published “The New Gatekeepers: Will Google Decide How We Remember Syria's Civil War.” Written by Global Voices Advocacy Director Ellery Roberts Biddle, “The New Gatekeepers” examines how big tech companies like Google and Facebook are shaping our view of the historical record of war atrocities and other trau…

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Up With Ida: A Monumental Teach-In for Ida B. Wells at the University of Mississippi 56:52

6+ y ago56:52

56:52

Ida B. Wells was an investigative journalist, an educator, a suffragist, a truth teller. She was born in Holly Spring, Mississippi in 1862. As an African American woman, she moved to Memphis and then Chicago, as she built a national reputation for her civil rights work. She reported and revealed the horrors of lynching in pamphlets and publications…

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In Pursuit of the Confederate Truce Flag with Artist Sonya Clark 1:25:22

6+ y ago1:25:22

1:25:22

The Confederate Truce Flag is a little known piece of Americana. It was flown as a white flag of surrender and delivered to the Appomattox Court House, Virginia in April 1865. A piece of it is owned by Smithsonian. It is not as iconic as the Confederate Battle Flag. Artist Sonya Clark wants to change that through her new exhibition Monumental Cloth…

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Climbing the Statue of Liberty and Fighting Immigrant Family Separation with activist Patricia Okoumou 1:09:40

6+ y ago1:09:40

1:09:40

This episode of Monument Lab features activist Patricia Okoumou, widely known as the woman who climbed the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 2018. Okoumou ascended the base of the statue as a direct action against the Trump Administration’s harsh and inhumane tactics of family separation at the US-Mexico border. Okoumou will be sentenced on charges of t…

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Creating a Record of California Wildfires and Climate Change with Photographer Stuart Palley 58:06

6+ y ago58:06

58:06

In November 2018, a series of violent fires throttled California and its surrounding landscape. Outside of Los Angeles, the Woolsey Fire resulted in a three casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents. The Camp Fire, decimated the town of Paradise in Northern California, a small retirement community, which killed at least …

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There’s a Spirit in Everything” with Scholars Salamishah Tillet and Grace Sanders Johnson Live from the Free Library of Philadelphia 1:22:52

6+ y ago1:22:52

1:22:52

This episode features two brilliant scholar-artist-activists Salamishah Tillet and Grace Sanders Johnson. It was recorded live from the Free Library of Philadelphia as a part of the 2019 One Book One Philadelphia festival. Tillet and Sanders Johnson have been friends of Monument Lab since the beginning, actually before the beginning. Tillet as a me…

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Taking Down the Columbus Statue in Downtown L.A. with Organizer Chrissie Castro 42:23

7y ago42:23

42:23

On November 10, 2018, a statue of Christopher Columbus was taken down in LA’s grant park. City officials and members of LA’s Native American Indian Commission were present to watch. Hundreds gathered to witness the takedown. Chrissie Castro, vice chair of the commission, was there. “After, decades of demonstration and protests, and dialogue," share…

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Mapping the New White Flight in Georgia with Journalist Brentin Mock 1:02:31

7y ago1:02:31

1:02:31

Brentin Mock, staff writer for CityLab, reports on the role of justice and civil rights in the laws and policies that govern our lives, particularly in the urban environment. He has a long history of reporting on environmental justice and voting rights, and voter suppression. Monument Lab speaks to Mock about his recent piece for CityLab “The Stran…

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Crafting Resistance Across the Street from the White House with Artist Stephanie Syjuco 51:12

7y ago51:12

51:12

Stephanie Syjuco is an artist and professor from UC Berkeley. Syjuco is one of the four artists featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational opening this week across the street from the White House. She works on monuments by scaling them to handheld objects, newly imagined commodities, and tools for prote…

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Immigrant Family Detention Reimagined on the State Capitol Steps with Artist Michelle Angela Ortiz 1:01:49

7y ago1:01:49

1:01:49

Michelle Angela Ortiz, visual artist and muralist, has collaborated with mothers and their families at Berks, an immigrant family prison, several hours away from her hometown of Philadelphia. Ortiz has worked to bring the stories of these detained mothers and their families to prominent public spaces where powerbrokers may connect with stories of t…