Since the beginning of time, people have created monuments, fully aware that those monuments will outlive them. From East to West, these monuments have taken different shapes and been erected for varying purposes.

In this triptych, each vertical marker is a snapshot (or encapsulation) of a specific time period, while the sun’s setting on the unified horizon represents a consistent cycle of time passing. Monuments and memorials frame, manipulate, reconstruct, and disseminate public memory––mimicking a practice we all participate in on an individual scale. Countering these public sites of memory, or destroying them, can often become a way to counter grand narratives.

What if the future of commemoration is not permanent or fixed to the ground; something we can not physically visit. Instead it is a form of commemoration that is constantly shifting and crafting new histories within the spaces between stories.

Polina Isurin

Polina Isurin