Philadelphia project seeks public reckoning with monuments

PHILADELPHIA » By artist Sharon Hayes’ count, Philadelphia has more than 1,500 sculptures honoring male historic figures — heroes on horseback, visionaries with arms folded and eyes looking forward, the usual round-up of Founding Fathers.

By contrast, there are only two sculptures dedicated to women — religious martyrs Joan of Arc and Mary Dyer.

The realization prompted, “If They Should Ask,” as assemblage of nine pedestals encircled by the names of more than 80 women that Hayes thought were worthy of being memorialized.

The exhibit is part of Monument Lab, a citywide public art and history project that asks people to join a conversation about “history, memory and our collective future.” Temporary monuments by 20 different artists, including Hayes, are popping up around the city that answer the question posed to the artists: “What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?”

“A monument claims a space. It’s trying to say, ‘This is who we celebrate and this is who we think is important,’” Hayes said. “I think the current climate is showing us they are meaningful.”

Monument Lab, produced by the city’s Mural Arts Program, has been in the works for years but comes in the midst of a national debate on the meaning of monuments.

While the topic has long been controversial, it has turned deadly after a woman was run down in Charlottesville during a rally by white nationalists, who were angry about the planned removal of a Confederate General Robert E. Lee statue.