Counter-Monument Practices in Vienna, Austria

This article researches multidirectional memory and transnationality in recent examples of counter-monument practices in Austria’s capital city, Vienna, specifically in regard to fights against antisemitism, racist discrimination and anti-Romaism. How have multidirectional strategies shaped counter-mnemonic struggle? Additionally, to what extent are they influenced by transnationality? Three examples of counter-monument practices are discussed in parallel: (1) The protests against the “Lueger monument,” commemorating an antisemitic former mayor of Vienna; (2) the illegally installed Marcus Omofuma Stone, commemorating the racist police murder of a Nigerian asylum seeker in 1999; and, (3) the ongoing struggle to commemorate the Porajmos, the genocide of the Roma under Nazi rule, with a monument in Vienna. Seemingly unrelated to one another, each case constitutes a struggle between national, hegemonic, commemorative narratives, on the one hand, and agents of civil society that challenge these narratives, on the other. While none of the three examples constitutes an obvious case of multidirectional memory making, each of these struggles to counter racist, discriminatory pasts did generate a platform to speak about more than just one memory, also such that transcend national boundaries.