S3:E7 A monumental pull... Paul Farber in conversation with Stephanie Fortunato
Guest
Paul Farber
In conversation with
Stephanie Fortunato
In this episode, our host Stephanie Fortunato speaks with Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab. They discuss the origins of Monument Lab and the value of boundaries for healthy collaboration. The two also discuss Monument Lab’s Pulling Together – an upcoming public art exhibition taking place from August 18th to September 18th, 2023 – which will bring forward new perspectives on Washington D.C.’s National Mall.
Date of Recording
23 June 2023
Date of Publication
6 July 2023
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[THEME MUSIC]
[00:00:05]
Stephanie Fortunato: Hello and welcome to The Three Bells. This podcast is one of a series brought to you by AEA Consulting and the Global Cultural Districts Network in which we explore what's happening around the world at those busy and sometimes congested intersections of cultural and urban life.
I'm your host, Stephanie Fortunato, director of Special Projects for GCDN. I'm speaking to you from Rhode Island, the ancestral land of the Narragansett, the Pokanoket, the Nipmuc, and other Indigenous peoples. I pay my respects to those who have and continue to live here and to all the First Nations people on the many lands of which we're listening today.
My guest today is Paul Farber, someone whom I've hoped to speak with almost since we started this podcast. He's a brilliant curator, historian, and educator from Philadelphia, which is also home to Monument Lab, the non-profit public art and history studio, which Paul co-founded in 2012, and of which he continues to lead as director.
Paul and his collaborators at Monument Lab have contributed so much to the field and our wider appreciation for monuments as symbols of power and privilege through their scholarly and artistic research. Their pioneering studies, artistic projects, and provocations in public spaces have helped open up new and important ways for communities to engage in public conversation about past and present, all while imagining an abundance of new possibilities for the future, which some of you may also know is my jam.
Paul is co-curating an exciting new exhibition with Dr. Salamishah Tillet for the National Mall in Washington DC that will open up later this summer, and I'm very grateful that he is with us on The Three Bells today to talk about it. Hello, Paul!
[00:01:45]
Paul Farber: Stephanie, it's so great to be here with you and talk to you again and, um, what a treat to be in conversation.
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About Our Guest
Paul M. Farber , PhD is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab. He also serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. His research and curatorial projects explore transnational urban history, cultural memory, and creative approaches to civic engagement. +
