16 St BLM mural removal

I’m equally heartbroken as angered to see this mural, a monument to Black Lives Matter, being removed. This is not just about the erasure of an artwork; it is about the erasure of a people, a statement, a history, a demand for accountability.

I used the image of this mural (an image taken by Nadia Aziz) on the cover of The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking, which I convened, curated, and edited. A book that holds placemaking to account, this is what I wrote in the Preface:

‘The cover image, of the street mural on 16 St, Washington DC, leading to the White House, was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, to literally put on the cover of the Handbook the political stance taken within. Secondly, as representative of placemaking’s inherent political imperative... In this one image, we have an art practice that has become synonymous with placemaking... We also have contested public realm and administrative relations, contested politics, racial injustice, and the right to the city and to protest... This is the politics of placemaking – and it is the job of placemakers to work in the service of our communities and, for those white placemakers, to offer our allyship at all times, platforming, amplifying, and making space for our people-of-colour colleagues and communities... It should never be forgotten that the street mural was intended as monument to lives lost from the Black community across America, and the world. Having this image on the front cover of this book is an act of remembrance and of resistance and a reminder of who we serve as placemakers and of our duty to ‘do better.’’

The street-scale BLACK LIVES MATTER words take up two blocks north of Lafayette Square, the site of police charging protestors to clear the way for 47's photo-op at St. John’s Church, his first time around. This mural was and has continued to be the site of racist acts of removal and painting over.

And now its gone. But its meaning and need has not.

https://lnkd.in/e-PKuPtE