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 those parameters.

As she notes, “I think that artists in Houston are actually quite vocal, some of them more vocal constituents who are really thinking through, ‘Okay, what can historic preservation look like given the policies and rules on the books in Houston?’”

Agu has been a visiting artist and resident of Project Row Houses and the University of Houston, where she studied the psychogeography of Emanciaption Park. She has witnessed the aftermath of monument takedowns in New Orleans, and seen firsthand how artists can take the lead in reclaiming, re-naming, public spaces.

Agu’s project Expanding Monuments is included in the High Line Joint Art Network’s New Monuments for New Cities Initiative. Over the last six months, Monument Lab has been research residents of this project and we are speaking with artists from each of its 5 partner cities – New York, Chicago, Austin, Houston, and Toronto – about monuments, memory, and public space.