Join textile and social practice artist Sonya Clark in a public conversation with Artistic Director/Host Paul Farber for a live recording of the Monument Lab Podcast. Together, they will explore Clark’s research informing her upcoming FWM exhibition, Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know, on view March 29 – August 4, 2019. In presenting this exhibition, Clark questions: “Why do we know the Confederate Battle Flag instead of the Confederate Truce Flag that marked surrender, brokered peace, and was a promise of reconciliation? What would it mean to the psychology of this nation if the Truce Flag replaced the flag associated with hate and white supremacy?”
Clark’s work investigates the legacy of symbols and challenges the power of propaganda, erasures, and omissions. By making the Truce Flag into a monumental alternative to the infamous Confederate Battle Flag and its pervasive divisiveness, the exhibition instigates a role reversal and aims to correct a historical imbalance. FWM is housed in a former flag factory, a particularly fitting place to ask questions about the symbolic power cloth can hold in the consciousness of our nation. Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know is a timely catalyst for dialogue about the scars of the Confederacy and America’s ability to acknowledge and reckon with racial injustice.
Monument Lab is an independent public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. Founded by Paul Farber and Ken Lum, Monument Lab works with artists, students, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on exploratory approaches to public engagement and collective memory. Cultivating and facilitating critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments, their studio and curatorial team also pilots collaborative approaches to unearthing and reinterpreting histories.
Special thanks to our hosts at Slought, a non-profit organization on the University of Pennsylvania campus encouraging dialogue and relationships through innovative social and cultural programs. The first fifty people to arrive will receive a keepsake from FWM as a memento of this event, and Monument Lab will release the podcast episode to coincide with our March 29 opening of Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know.
