Build a Nano-Lantern

Concept and Direction by Processional Arts Workshop
Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles, artistic directors
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Levy Lorenzo, electronic sound artist
Ethan Cohn, sound assistant

Artists statement

– Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles, Processional Arts Workshop

At long last, Morningside Lights returns to the pathways of Morningside Park, rekindling an 11-year community tradition of shaping our stories in light. Looking back on all that has happened since we last walked together has made us wonder about how our culture constructs and contains collective memory in public space – how we memorialize. The Reimagined Monument is a timely invitation to our community of makers to rethink the convention of public statuary, creating their own monuments to speak to our current moment, our shared past, and our hopes for the future.

New York boasts an astounding 800 permanent monuments, each with a story to tell. Yet until recently many people experienced monuments as ubiquitous, easily-overlooked ornaments of the urban landscape, rather than as vessels for historical memory. Others feel an acute disconnect from the people and histories the monuments enshrine. However, some of that is changing as public conversations have begun to question and re-evaluate the legacies and assumptions behind the city’s monuments – from Columbus to J Marion Sims to Theodore Roosevelt. Moving away from predominantly white, male military/political figures, new monuments are popping up, honoring pioneering figures like Sojourner Truth, Shirley Chisolm, Billie Holiday, and Marsha P Johnson. These questions have also brought new attention to existing monuments that honor the heroism of “ordinary” people – the kneeling fireman, the garment worker, the immigrant family, the Fearless Girl. Still others honor objects, animals, and icons, or reaffirm the importance of imagination itself – like Alice in Wonderland and Morningside Park’s iconic Bear and Faun.  

In this new ethos of questioning, the reimagined monument can become almost anything. In a week of collaborative workshops, we ask our community: “How might a monument transcend the convention of figurative statuary, to highlight untold histories in everyday objects, personal images, and cultural touchstones? How might we put the U and ME back in “monument?”  The resulting procession of giant lanterns may not last as long as stone and bronze, but the lingering after-image of our homemade monuments – and the personal stories they tell – will endure as the tradition of Morningside Lights continues.