hackingmonuments

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Mwa Ka

Mwa Ka è un monumento in movimento, oggetto di metamorfosi, aperto al flusso al processo, che afferma "la necessità di elaborare un pensiero dinamico e generativo della convivenza"

A seguire, un estratto dal capitolo "metafore e monumenti" del libro Oceania, di Adriano Favole, Editori Laterza

In Place de Cocotiers, cuore della capitale, troneggia fin dal 1897 la statua del generale Jean-Baptiste Olry, il governatore della Nuova Caledonia che nel 1878 represse col sangue l'insurrezione dei Kanak capeggiata da Ataï. Fu solo nel 1974, a partire dalle proteste dei Foulards Rouges, che venne rimosso dalla base del monumento uin. bassorilievo che rappresentava alcuni kanak prostrati davanti al governatore in segno di resa e deferenza. La statua di Orly per il momento resiste al suo posto (...) anche se non mancano iniziative che ne chiedono la rimozione. (...)

Nel 2003, il Comitato "150 ans après", un'emanazione dell'Associazione per i diritttidei popoli autoctoni, aveva deciso di erigere il primo monumento kanak a Nouméa (...) Narcisse Decoiré, uno scultore originario della tribù di Saint -Luis, fu incaricato di coordinare il progetto. La scelta dell'artista fu di rivolgersi a otto scultori, ciascuno appartenente a una delle otto aree linguistico-cultirali del paese, chiedendo loro di "istoriare", con figure tratte dalle mitologie dei loro gruppi di appartenenza , l'imponenete tronco di un albero di houp (Montrouziera cauliflora) (...). Nel primo progetto (....) il monumento doveva rappresentaare il palo centrale di un'abitazione (...). Mwa Ka, palo centrale dell'abitazione, spina dorsale, casa di tutti, era il simbolo e la metafora architettonica che il Comitato 150 ans après proponeva alla città per conciliare la cultura kanak e riconoscimento delle altre comunità. (...).

Realizzato il monumento (...) occorreva trovare un luogo in cui collocarlo. Il Comitato 150 ans après chiese al sindaco di Nouméa di poterlo erigere propria in Place de Cocotiers, poche decine di metri dalla statua di Olry: come a dire, il passato coloniale da un lato, il futuro condiviso davanti a noi. L'autorizzazione fu tuttavia negata. (...) trovarono un accordo nella possibilità di collocare il monumento nei pressi della Baia de la Moselle, proprio davanti al Musée Territorial, non lontano dal mercato e dall'imponenete monumento ai caduti americani della seconda guerra mondiale. Al momento della seconda inaugurazione, Mwa Ka aveva subìto un'interessante , inattesa e creativa metamorfosi. Mwa Ka rimaneva un'opera toteimica istoriata di imponenete altezza (oltre 12 metri) e tuttavia si presntava ora non più come il palo centrale dell "grande casa" di tutti, bensi come l'albero maestro di una grande imbarcazione ricostruita alla sua base! La metagora architettonica di radicamento e dell'ospitalità aveva lacoato spazio alla metafora nautica del viaggio e della grande imbarcazione capace ti trasportare tutti verso il "destino comune".

Nel 2005 "venne collocato alla base della piroga un timpniere dall'aspetto kanak! La statua, in legno massicciom venne portata in pellegrinaggio attorno alla Place de Cocotiers da rappresentatni della varie comunità: kanak, pionniers, cabili, indonesiani, giapponesi, vietnamiti, cinesi, polinesiani di Wallis e Futuna, polinesiani di Tahiti, caraibici.

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https://www.laterza.it/scheda-libro/?isbn=9788858115220

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'For anyone who isn’t aware – the statue out the front has had a cone on its head continuously for the past 40 odd years. Despite the best efforts of the council and the police, every time one is removed another takes its place.' - Banksy, June 2023

The history of a talking monument. The following text is from the wikipedia page about the statue.

The equestrian statue of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington located outside the Royal Exchange, now known as the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland, is one of Glasgow's most iconic landmarks.

The statue of the Duke on his favourite horse Copenhagen was sculpted by Italian artist Carlo Marochetti and erected in 1844. The statue is a Category-A listed monument.

In recent times the statue has become known for being capped with a traffic cone.[2] Adorning the statue with a cone had continued over many years: the act was claimed to represent the humour of the local population and was believed to date back to at least the 1980s.[3][4][5][6]

In 2005, Glasgow City Council and Strathclyde Police took a stance of asking the public not to replace the cone, citing minor damage to the statue and the potential for injury when attempting to place a cone.[4][5]

In 2011 the Lonely Planet guide included the statue in its list of the "top 10 most bizarre monuments on Earth".

In 2013 Glasgow City Council put forward plans for a £65,000 restoration project, that included a proposal to double the height of its plinth and raise it to more than six feet (1.8 metres) in height to "deter all but the most determined of vandals".[8] Their planning application contained an estimate that the cost of removing traffic cones from the statue was £100 per callout, and that this could amount to £10,000 a year. The plans were withdrawn after widespread public opposition, including an online petition that received over 10,000 signatures. As the council indicated that action against the practice could still be considered, the art-political organization National Collective organised a rally in defence of the cone.

In 2014, in support of the Scottish Independence referendum, the statue was fitted with a "Yes" cone as well as a flag fitted in the statue's stirrup

The cone was replaced with a gold painted one during the 2012 Olympics as a celebration of Scotland's contribution to the record haul of gold medals won by Team GB. A replica of the statue, complete with cone, appeared at the 2014 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, and a gold cone was then again placed on the statue to mark the success of the games.

In 2015, Glasgow City Council tested hi-tech CCTV software worth £1.2m, checking to see whether it could automatically detect people putting cones on the statue, which it could.

On Brexit Day (31 January 2020) pro-European supporters placed a cone painted to represent the EU flag on the statue's head.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the statue was adorned with a cone and a blue surgical mask around the statue's ears to reflect the pandemic and lockdowns in the country.

In March 2022, in support of Ukraine and as a protest against Russia's invasion of it, the statue was fitted with a cone with the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

In June 2023 to promote his exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, artist Banksy declared that the statue was his "favourite work of art in the UK". On 21 June, the Scottish climate change campaigning group This Is Rigged placed a cone with their logo on the statue, and invited Banksy to support their cause.

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Another Bailout of Memories / Performance by Marcio Carvalho / Audio: Courtesy of Elsa Peralta and the exhibition Retornar / King Carlos I Statue, Palacio da Ajuda, Lisbon

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Feministischen Umgestaltung des „Seltenen Fangs“ im Rahmen des Frauen*kampftages 2019 

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TheFirstMinutesofOctober

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“Monumenti e spirito del tempo. Segni del potere e gerarchie dei valori.” di Emma de Zardo, edizioni FrancoAngeli 2024.

One of the chapters is “Hackerando lo spazio: intervista di Maria Gaia Redavid a Simona Da Pozzo” 

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Still from Minga Prácticas De-coloniales, Cultural kidnapping for Caucan dignity (2021)

“STILL TO BE NAMED / AÚN POR NOMBRAR”

exhibition curated by PAOLA PEÑA at PS122 gallery NOVEMBER 12, 2022 – JANUARY 15, 2023

Participating Artists: Andrea Ferrero, Andrés Monzón, Gala Berger, José Ruiz, Juan Covelli, Laura Campaz, Minga Prácticas De-coloniales (*Emiliano ��xayu’çe and Edison Quiñones Falla of Nasa origin, Estefanía García Pineda of the Caribbean coast, Miller Muñoz of Cauca, Taita Lorenzo Tunubalá Hurtado Mørøpik Misak, Phuyu Uma (Jenniffer Ávila Jordan) and Isua Pørøpik (Eyder Calambás Tróchez) of the Misak nation).

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Luchezar Boyadjiev

2004-2013, Photography Installation

This photographic collection presents images of equestrian monuments from all around the world. By removing the figures of the riders from the images – most of them male rulers and warriors – with the help of digital reworking, Boyadjiev creates an unsettling effect and invites viewers to question the rationale behind marking public space with statues of political heroes who tend to be representations of patriarchal power. But he achieves something else too: we are free to admire the beauty of horses, something that has long been ignored in these monuments.

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El Imperio de la Ley, 

Video 30’ 12’’ Daniela Ortiz, 2018

Text from Ortiz website:

La ley es una de las herramientas fundamentales usada por el sistema colonial para legitimar y ejercer violencia contra los pueblos del sur global. La invasión de los territorios del Congo, el asesinato y desmembramiento de Tupac Amaru II, el letal extractivismo minero en Abya Yala así como los procesos de deportación de personas migrantes en Europa han sido siempre legales, han contado siempre con protocolos, normativas y reglamentos.

El imperio de la Ley analiza como la ley ha servido de herramienta al sistema colonial, como el paternalismo ha sido un pilar imprescindible para la supremacía blanca y como los estados nación independientes han significado una continuación del orden colonial para los pueblos en resistencia.

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Thanks to Assemblea Antispecista for bringing back to memory this case.

Londra, 19 Marzo 1910. Sono passati 9 giorni da quando la statua del cane marrone è stata rimossa in gran segreto, di notte, da quattro operai scortati da 120 poliziotti e Trafalgar Square è occupata da 3.000 persone che stanno manifestando per chiederne l'immediata restituzione.

Per capire perché una statua di bronzo possa essere tanto preziosa, bisogna fare un passo indietro e tornare a sette anni prima, al febbraio 1903, quando un cane marrone, già provato da mesi di esperimenti, fu torturato e infine ucciso con un coltello durante una lezione di medicina all'Università di Londra, un evento che generò grande dibattito e che diede nuova linfa al movimento antivivisezionista.

Due anni più tardi, attivistɜ antivivisezione commissionarono una statua del cane marrone con la seguente iscrizione: "In memoria del cane Terrier marrone condannato a morte nei laboratori dello University College a Febbraio del 1903 dopo aver sopportato vivisezioni per oltre due mesi ed essere passato da un vivisettore all'altro finché la morte non lo ha liberato. In memoria anche dei 232 cani vivisezionati nello stesso luogo durante il 1902. Uomini e Donne d'Inghilterra quanto ancora dureranno queste cose?".

La statua fu oggetto di frequente vandalismo tanto da dover esser sorvegliata e generò tali controversie che portarono l'amministrazione locale a optare per la sua rimozione.

“Il caso del cane marrone. La storia di un monumento che ha diviso una nazione” - Peter Mason, Vanda Edizioni

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ETCÉTERA by Ivan Argote

CUBRIENDO CON ESPEJOS A FRANCISCO DE ORELLANA, SUPUESTO DESCUBRIDOR DEL AMAZONAS. PARQUE NACIONAL, BOGOTÁ. PHOTO SERIES, 2012 - 2018

During the shooting of the film La Estrategia, Argote used as a narrative strategy to make actual interventions in different monuments and squares around the city with the all crew that became a sort of intervention team. In this case the group covered with mirrors a statue of Francisco de Orellana that is in the National Park in Bogota, in the city center. Orellana was a conquistador who proclaimed himself to be the discoverer of the all Amazonian Forest, which in itself an absurdity. A cube of mirrors was placed around the statue making Orellana disappear in a sort of mirage, where instead of seen him, we see the trees around, the sky… everything else that is not that old absurd hero.

Several of the works made around this film where acquired recently by the Centre Pompidou, including also other series named Turistas. These works will be shown in June 2020 in the Museum as part of a new hanging of the permanent collection, in a show named Global Resistance.

http://ivanargote.com/selected-projects/article/etcetera

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TURISTAS by Iván Argote 

PHOTO SERIES, 2012 - 2013

Iván Argote covers with indigenous ponchos (and without permission) some historical statues made for the glory of the conquerors (in Spain, Colombia and United States). This gesture is still tender and heart-warming, despite his frontal criticism against a political power that stands as heroes figures who contributed to the massacre of many indigenous tribes.

Two photographies of this series have joined the collection of the Centre Pompidou and will be presented for the first time in the museum in the exhibition : Global(e) Résistance, curated by Christine Macel, Alicia Knock and Yung Ma, from June 24 to October 26, 2020.

http://ivanargote.com/selected-projects/article/turistas

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“Le ragazze di Trieste”

 2008 Annalisa Cattani

temporary site specific installation, archive documents, sound installation, embroider cloth, with the names of some of the girls died in Trieste psychiatric hospital.

A pre-existing monument became the drive of the work. Too often monuments lose their function of manere and monere (staying and reminding) as the etymology of the term would mean, becoming backgrounds only for photos or points of reference for finding one's bearings. In this case "The girls of Trieste", monument to the women who sustained their men during the war by symbolically sewing the flag, become with the addition of an embroidered cloth with tens of names taken from the archives of the psychiatric hospital, the voice of the forgotten women deceased in mental hospitals, in memory of what happened and as a warning of that which should never happen again. Following Hauser point of view "when artistic portrayal is co-extensive with actual  and I would add with historical events, these deliberations may organize public memory in other than official terms, thereby shaping society's understanding of its own historicity and  the model of its own self-organization" (Hauser 2005, p. 270).

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#PeoPL​ by Laura Nsengiyumva

“#PeoPL​ addresses the figure of Leopold II in the public space of Brussels. And more generally, it refers to its phantasmagoric presence in the Belgian consciousness;(in official celebrations, folklore,language : «King «Builder»). The figure of King Leopold II becomes the instrument of a biased and uncomfortable patriotism. The disappearance of the colonial discourse has as melting ice a subtile temporality; happening but invisible to the naked eye. This installation is a leap of faith in this change of mentality and an ode to the decolonizing forces behind it; activists, vandals, academics, and other citizens.” Laura Nsengiyumva

Laura Nsengiyumva on Liberation

Article about her installation here