Memorialization

Power is embodied in the preservation of history through the domination of discourse and memory. The values of society, or of those who hold power, are reflected in how history is chosen to be remembered. One such way to document history is through memorials and monuments. The functions of memorialization include “advancing educational purposes, …facilitating historic preservation, …offering symbolic reparations to honor the victims” and mourning. The history of monuments and memorials before the second half of the nineteenth century predominantly celebrated questionable values of nationalism, colonialism and imperialism. These monuments represented the values of governments and powerful citizens who were charged with memorializing history.
Memorials can be used as a tool for education, either formally or informally. Teachers could use memorials as a visual aid as part of their curriculum. Moreover, because of their presence in the public sphere, memorials allow for the general public to spontaneously stumble upon a piece of history and learn. This goal is often achieved through plaques with information aimed at educating the audience of the historical background of the memorial, though not all memorials contain such information. However, builders of memorials should be careful when choosing what information is taught and how they frame the memorial. For example, Ingar Dragset’s Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime connects the past to the present by including a clip of two men sharing a kiss filmed on the location of the monument. The location and subtlety of the memorial “present a public display that is consciously marginalized by its surroundings”. This marginalization symbolically represents the reality that homosexuals face in society. It reminds viewers of the discrimination homosexuals continue to face
These structures are notable in the memorialization of Holocaust victims in Germany, especially in Berlin. The counter-monuments came from a need of resistance not only to oppression but also to marginalization of memory. Memorials and monuments had served to promote only certain people tied to problematic ideologies. However, new counter monuments served to promote “antiheroic, often ironic and self-effacing conceptual installations that mark the national ambivalence and uncertainty of late 20th-century postmodernism”. With unconventional designs that rejected the practice of memorialization, these memorials sought to reveal hidden narratives as resistance to the power that marginalized them. However, some artists have also defied the standards of monuments not through this post-modern concept counter-memorialization, but through other methods of defiance. For example, the design of the Bussa Emancipation Statue is typical in that it depicts a powerful leader elevated on a pedestal. However, instead of celebrating a colonial, imperialist power, the statue celebrates Bussa, a 17th century slave who led a revolt on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The man is not on a horse, but rather breaking free of chains and rising up. Rarely do memorials demonstrate the liberation of the oppressed through their own means. The history of liberation by the oppressors