March 11, 2025
The last few decades mark a global proliferation in the design and preservation of sites of memory (memory museums, memorials, commemorative days, heritage sites, monuments, parks, naming buildings or streets, and so on). The Memolab is designed to explore the readings and this topic by a) mapping sites of memory and forgetting on campus (statues, buildings, memorials, museums) and b) designing a memorial site of your choosing during an in-class exercise (see description below).

You will work in groups of 2-3 people.  In groups, you will 1) explore the UBC campus following the attached map/set of instructions and 2) do the readings for inspiration and think about creating a site of memory on campus, 3) come to class to share reflections on memory sites (erasure) on campus, 4) design your own intervention.

Readings – choose any four (4) of interest

1. Alderman, Derek H., and Owen J. Dwyer. “Memorials and monuments.” International encyclopedia of human geography 7.1 (2009): 51-58.
2. Young, James E. “The counter-monument: memory against itself in Germany today.” Critical inquiry 18.2 (1992): 267-296.
3. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. “Rhodes must fall.” Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Taylor & Francis, 2018.
4. Vertinsky, Patricia Anne, and Sherry McKay, eds. Disciplining bodies in the gymnasium: Memory, monument, modernism. Psychology Press, 2004.  Chapter 1.
5. Alderman, D. H., & Rose-Redwood, R. (2019). The classroom as “toponymic workspace”: towards a critical pedagogy of campus place renaming. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 44(1), 124–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2019.1695108
6. Li, Lin. “” Comfort Women” Memorials at the Crossroads of Ultranationalist, Feminist, and Decolonial Critiques: Triangulating Japan, South Korea, and the United States.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 43.3 (2022): 89-116.
7. Shepherd, Nick. “After the# fall: The shadow of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town.” City 24.3-4 (2020): 565-579.
8. Brasher, Jordan P., Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua FJInwood. “Applying critical race and memory studies to university place naming controversies: Toward a responsible landscape policy.” Papers in Applied Geography 3.3-4 (2017): 292-307.
9. Guite, Jangkhomang. “Monuments, memory and forgetting in postcolonial north-east India.” Economic and Political Weekly (2011): 56-64.
10. Flint, Maureen A. “Racialized retellings:(Un) ma (r) king space and place on college campuses.” Critical Studies in Education 62.5 (2021): 559-574.
11. Barbosa, Francisco J. “July 23, 1959: Student Protest and State Violence as Myth and Memory in Leoón, Nicaragua.” Hispanic American Historical Review 85.2 (2005): 187-221.

Further Reading

1. Stevens, Quentin, and Karen A. Franck. Memorials as spaces of engagement: Design, use and meaning. Routledge, 2015.
2. Sodaro, Amy. Exhibiting atrocity: Memorial museums and the politics of past violence. Rutgers University Press, 2017. Chapter 7, ‘Memorial Museums: Promises and Limits’ pp. 162-184.
3. Chaudhuri, Amit. 2016. The Real Meaning of Rhodes Must Fall. The Guardian. March 16. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall
4. Fortin, Jacet. 2017   The Statue at the Center of Charlottesville’s Storm. New York Times. August 13.
5. Neus, Nora. 2023 Robert E Lee statue that sparked Charlottesville riot is melted down: ‘Like his face was crying’. Guardian Oct.23.

The MemoLab Agenda:

A.  2-2:15  Framing the Discussion:  Erin

B.  2:15-3:15 Dialogue: Erin with co-facilitators Elena and Claire

1. What is the role of memory on university campuses? How is memory on university campuses shaped by power and geo-politics and/or is place-based?
2. Did you see yourself in these readings after the walk, what helped you make connections / see something on campus?
3. What did you learn about memory on UBC campus, what did you see/hear/feel in relation to the questions you were asked to consider?
4. What was the process of mapping the campus like for you?  What did you think about in anticipation of designing your own memory sites today?

C.  3:15-3:25  Break

D.  3:25-4:15 Designing a site of memory (or counter-memory) in class to propose to UBC Arts (First, gather your thoughts on memorial design from previous weeks and reading, ask them to yourself and each other, can they provide a guide to design?  Agree on topic or person important to you to remember / or a site you wish to contest on campus (Ladner Clock Tower?) then proceed to develop a proposal taking into the considerations below.  Plan to present to the President of the University.

E.  4:20-4:45: Group Presentation of your proposal to class.

Design a memorial/monument/site of memory/counter-memorial/proposal to rename, discussing the following questions:

• Why are you choosing the topic you are, who/what/when is it memorializing (a person, more-than human, place or event, someone known, a group of people, a disappeared history)? Provide a justification.
• What is the purpose of this site?
• What is important to convey? How is this conveyed in the design? (Size, shape, colour, texture – is there text, what is the text?)
• What kind of memorial are you proposing and why (a monument, a park, an event…)
• Would be permanent or temporary, stationary or mobile?
• Where would it be placed / located and why is that important?
• Consider relations of power: how does gender, race, religion, nationality, disability or sexuality come into play in what you represent and why?  How is power observed / contested?
• Do you want to design it to engage the public and how, for what?
• Is the proposed design to be collaborative or participatory (see distinction in Asavei 619)?
• With whom do you propose to collaborate and consult?  or to engage in participatory witnessing?
• Reflect on who you are in relation to the memorial, who are you to design it?  Who are you not too?  How might your positionality shape what you design or not?
• In the presentation you might want to  sketch, a model, use photos, powerpoint, or mock up and be ready to answer the questions above