Monument Lab is an independent public art and history studio currently based in Philadelphia. Founded by Paul Farber and Ken Lum, Monument Lab works with artists, students, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on exploratory approaches to public engagement and collective memory. Monument Lab cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments. 

As a studio and curatorial team, we pilot collaborative approaches to unearthing and reinterpreting histories. This includes citywide art exhibitions, site-specific commissions, participatory research initiatives, a national fellows program, a web bulletin and podcast, and more.  

Our goal is to critically engage the public art we have inherited to reimagine public spaces through stories of social justice and equity. In doing so, we aim to inform and influence the processes of public art, as well as the permanent collections of cities, museums, libraries, and open data repositories.

Since 2012, Monument Lab’s projects have engaged 300,000 people in person, and garnered recognitions from Americans for the Arts and the Preservation Alliance.

Monument Lab is supported by the Knight Foundation, the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania, Slought, and the Surdna Foundation. Our previous projects have received grants from the Pew Center for Art & Heritage, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the William Penn Foundation.

Some of Monument Lab’s partners past and current partners include the Barnes Foundation, the High Line, Mural Arts Philadelphia, New Arts Justice at Express Newark, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

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