Talk & Book Launch Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream

Kolaj Institute supports artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, & disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement

Kolaj Institute

Ric Kadour speaks about the life cycles of monuments & why conflicts around monuments are important to working out who we are as a people.

Knoxville Museum of Art

For the launch of his book, Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream, Ric Kasini Kadour speaks about the life cycle of monuments and why conflicts around monuments are important to figuring out who we are as a people. The book is published in conjunction with "Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream", on view in the <a href="https://www.knoxart.org" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Knoxville Museum of Art</a>'s Kramer Gallery through February 19, 2022.In 2021, at the invitation of the citizens of Birr, County Offaly, Ireland, curator Ric Kasini Kadour invited eighteen collage artists from eleven countries to use the photograph, The Square, Parsonstown by Robert French (1841-1917) from the Lawrence Photograph Collection, to imagine a monument that speaks to a world where all people enjoy safety, security, well-being, and dignity on their own terms. The collage prints debuted during the 53rd Annual Birr Vintage Week &amp; Arts Festival, where the project was recognized with a National Heritage Award. The work was shown again during Kolaj LIVE Knoxville at the Knoxville Museum of Art, November 5-7, 2021.“The exhibition of these works in the American South changes the context of the project from one rooted in British imperialism to an opportunity to reflect upon the role monuments can play in historical revisionism, in particular as we work to undo the legacy of slavery and the use of Confederate monuments to distort history and intimidate the descendants of enslaved people," writes Kadour. “That important civic conversation has focused on whether monuments should stay or be removed. We hope this exhibition invites a different conversation: What role do we want monuments to play in our community? What shared ideas or collective memories do we want future generations to celebrate? And ultimately, how can we build communities where all people enjoy safety, security, well-being, and dignity on their own terms?” In the 140-page, generously illustrated book, Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream, Ric Kasini Kadour unpacks what monuments are and their role in our communities. He takes the reader on a tour from the Megalithic Temples of Malta to Brú na Bóinne in Ireland to the Confederate monuments of Obion County, Tennessee to the empty column in the center of Birr, County Offaly, Ireland. Kadour asks us to consider monuments as sites of collective memory and as places to reflect upon history, even when that history is false or misleading. He then shows us what happens when collage artists reimagine these spaces as sites of truth and reconciliation.

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Talk & Book Launch Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream

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Talk & Book Launch Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream

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