The Generative Memorial: The Case of the 2018 National Memorial for Peace and Justice

This symposium paper has two main aims: first, to offer an analysis of what I see as the vanguard of public commemorative art today—what I am calling the ‘generative memorial’—suggesting that it is the culmination (thus far) of a narrative of memorial development. I will do this through a discussion of the most exemplary case of which I am aware: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama (USA). Second, I pay special attention to the complicated relationship of this generative memorial to public space. In its deft straddling of private and public spaces, I shall argue that the memorial raises and successfully addresses a significant danger in public memorials, namely, that their creation be seen as sufficient for discharging a society’s duty to remember grave injustices committed or permitted in its name.