demonumenta proposes a discussion of the coloniality embedded in public institutions and collections through a platform developed by students and faculty at FAU-USP.
Monuments are being contested around the world. This process is not new, but it was catalysed by the protests following the murder of George Floyd. In São Paulo, groups and social movements have challenged a series of monuments in different ways. The most radical cases concern the bandeirantes, the targets of protests denouncing their role as enslavers, spreaders of disease and invaders of Indigenous territories.
This public confrontation with official sites of memory concerns not only monuments but also architectural heritage and key pieces in the historical collections of São Paulo state, including the Pinacoteca and the Museu Paulista.
demonumenta proposes a discussion of the coloniality embedded in public institutions and collections through a platform developed by students and faculty at FAU-USP, in collaboration with institutions and research centres including C4AI – Inova USP, CITI – USP, the Museu Paulista at USP, the MIT Open Documentary Lab and PISA, and co-produced by USP’s Office of Culture and Extension.
In its first phase, the project addresses troubling monuments and architectural heritage associated with celebrations of Brazilian Independence and the 1922 Modern Art Week, and their reverberations in 1932, 1954 and 1972.
The project resulted in the demonumentaRA app, active during the exhibition in public space and documented in the publication below.
demonumentaRA | Online publication
Photos: Ana Ottoni
