A new partnership between
UMMA and
Monument Lab–a nonprofit studio working on monuments and public memory initiated in Philadelphia in 2012 by Farber and artist Ken Lum–supports critical dialogues about the responsibilities of public institutions as makers and stewards of cultural history.
Cannupa Hanska Luger, This Is Not A Snake Ceramic, 2017–2020. Fiber, steel, oil drums, concertina wire, ammunition cans, trash, found objects. And Cannupa Hanska Luger, The One Who Checks & The One Who Balances Beadwork, 2018. Surplus industrial felt, ceramic, riot gear, afghan. Courtesy of Heard Museum. Photo credit: Craig Smith.Uduma and Farber are joining forces on the first project of this collaboration, which centers on an as-yet-unannounced work of temporary public art by Cannupa Hanska Luger, a multidisciplinary artist and enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold.
You’re Welcome draws together local Indigenous communities and student groups to challenge University of Michigan’s origin story, which describes the land that enabled its founding as a gift from the Anishinaabe peoples at the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs in exchange for the education of their children. While the public activation addresses the facade of UMMA’s Alumni Memorial Hall, a war memorial erected in 1910,
You’re Welcome also includes two indoor components: an exhibition exploring Luger’s wide-ranging practice as a sculptor and ceramicist, prominently featuring his works,
This is Not a Snake / The One Who Checks & The One Who Balances (2017-2020), significantly reworked including materials from University of Michigan’s archives and UMMA’s collection; a public classroom on monuments and memory on the campus and the role they play in society.
Laton Alton Huffman, After the Chase, North Montana, 1882. Collotype on paper. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Michael Fauman. Courtesy of the UMMA.Ozi Uduma is the Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). She has been working with UMMA since 2018, first as a curatorial assistant to Laura De Becker, UMMA Chief Curator and Helmut and Candis Stern Curator of African Art, and was promoted to assistant curator in 2020. Ozi curated the Unsettling Histories (2021) exhibition and served as curator for UMMA’s presentation of Romare Bearden: Abstraction (2022). She co-curated the Wish You Were Here and We Write To You About Africa projects (2021). Ozi was born and raised in Detroit and is of Nigerian descent.
Paul M. Farber, PhD is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab. Farber has written and co-edited several books including A Wall of Our Own: An American History of the Berlin Wall (2020), Monument Lab: Creative Speculations on Philadelphia (2019), and the National Monument Audit (2021). His curatorial work includes Philadelphia-based projects Citywide Exhibition (2017) and Staying Power (2021), the nationwide project Re:Generation (2022), and upcoming exhibition on the National Mall, Beyond Granite’s Pulling Together (2023). He also hosts The Statue, a podcast series from WHYY and NPR, and co-hosts Future Memory, a podcast series from Monument Lab. He serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania and is the University of Michigan Arts Initiative’s first Curator-in-Residence.