Public Monuments are products of collective imagination—to honor a person, a group of people, or a historical event. Whether it is the Statue of Liberty or the Sphinx, monuments were erected with specific intentions and designed to convey a clear message to all who see them. What happens when we design these moments in history for concerns we have in the present? Are monuments really fixed in time?

Monument Media is a workshop led by Tech Resident Alum Umber Majeed, exploring speculative futures for monuments of the present. Participants take on the role of an Architect-Historian-Tour Guide to speculate on the meaning-making of monuments through collage, 3D modeling, and fiction.

Date: This in-person workshop will meet on Saturday, April 16 from 1-4pm.

Price: $0-75.

Audience: Open to all.

Materials: Materials will be provided.

Umber Majeed (b. New York, 1989) is a multidisciplinary visual artist and educator. Her writing, performance, and animation work engage with familial archives to explore Pakistani state, urban, and digital infrastructure through a feminist lens. In her current research project “Long Live Trans-Pakistan”, she explores the effects of monuments from history placed in unusual contexts as a morphing of time-scapes from her artistic research in Pakistan. Umber is currently the New Media Artist in Residence at Museum of Moving Image's Education Department, Astoria.

For questions, please contact education@pioneerworks.org

In accordance with the New York City mandate, Key to NYC, visitors (age 12+) must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter Pioneer Works at Red Hook Labs. Be prepared to show your proof of vaccination upon arrival to Pioneer Works at Red Hook Labs. Please review our updated Health and Safety Policy here.

Classes at Pioneer Works are made possible by Sandeman Port.

This program is also supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.