Jurors will review project submissions this month for a competition that asks participants to reimagine Monument Avenue, and 20 finalists will have their work displayed at The Valentine museum throughout 2019.
Submissions for “Monument Avenue: General Demotion/General Devotion” — a competition hosted by VCU’s MoB (Middle of Broad) Studio and the Storefront for Community Design and made possible by a $30,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant — were due Dec. 1. At press time, 96 applicants had registered.
The exhibition of the finalists’ work will open on Feb. 14. In November, the jury will convene in Richmond to make final award selections for prizes, as well as recognizing the “People’s Choice Award,” which members of the public will vote on throughout the year. There is also a parallel youth competition, the results of which will be displayed in March at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design on Monument Avenue.
“I'm excited about the conversation that will result from this,” says Camden Whitehead, an associate professor at VCU School of the Arts and MoB faculty member. “Since the mayor's [Monument Avenue] commission came out with their study, things have been relatively quiet, and I think it will be good to reignite the conversation.”
The Monument Avenue Commission’s report, released last July, recommended options including the placement of new signs at Confederate monuments “that reflect the historic, biographical, artistic and changing meaning over time for each.” In addition, the report suggested commissioning contemporary works that add meaning to Monument Avenue, and raised the possibility of removing the Jefferson Davis statue.
Whitehead says MoB Studio (205 E. Broad St.) also expects to hold several community conversations while the Valentine exhibition is on display.
After the competition — which aimed to attract a broad array of project teams encompassing artists, designers, urban planners, architects and others — Whitehead says he hopes that MoB will continue to find ways to facilitate conversations around race and the city’s history, legacy and future.
“Design just has [the] ability … to envision things that don't exist,” he says, “and in some ways take risks with those things, to generate conversation that's about design and about outcomes rather than about positions.”
