Who Decides What Belongs in Public Spaces?

Via Karsh Institute of Democracy

 A new exhibit from the Karsh Institute of Democracy and UVA Library uses photographs of Confederate and other monuments removed across Virginia in recent years to explore questions of history, memory, and democratic decision-making. 

By Erin Tör

September 25, 2026

For generations, Confederate monuments occupied prominent public spaces across Virginia. They stood in parks, along avenues, outside courthouses, and on the grounds of the state Capitol. 

Then, beginning in 2020, that changed. Many monuments came down across the Commonwealth, including along Richmond's Monument Avenue and in downtown Charlottesville. Some were removed through formal government processes; others were removed amid protests and direct action. In Charlottesville, years of public debate and litigation preceded the removal of the city's Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statues in July 2021. Around the same time, other monuments that had become subjects of public debate were removed as well, including one depicting Revolutionary War military officer George Rogers Clark and another featuring Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea. 

Those changes are the focus of “The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space?”—a new exhibition on view in Shannon Library. Featuring photographs by Sanjay Suchak, a former Karsh Institute Practitioner Fellow in Democracy (2023–24), the exhibition asks visitors to consider what those changes reveal about a broader question: Who should shape the public spaces we all share? 

Suchak was there as monuments that had defined Virginia's public spaces for decades were removed. His photographs capture the physical process of removal and the people who gathered to watch.

“As a photographer, I think anytime something historical occurs that you've watched go from a community-developed idea to legislative action, you want to document that,” Suchak said. “For me, it was a way to process the events of [the Unite the Right rally on] August 11 and 12, 2017, in Charlottesville—a direct response to these removals being planned—and to feel like I could help contribute to the record of our communities.” 

The work often meant moving quickly and quietly. “To witness it firsthand was surreal,” Suchak said. “Nobody growing up in Virginia probably would have thought these things would come down, and then to be a part of it—meeting in secret locations—there was a lot of adrenaline, and an immediate realization that this is a significant chapter being turned in the history of our Commonwealth.” 

The photographs in the exhibit span Virginia. A timeline running along the floor provides historical context, tracing each monument from its installation, in some cases in the decades after the Civil War or tied to other chapters of Virginia's history, through the debates, protests, government decisions, and legal challenges that preceded removal. 

That longer history shows how communities have decided, and continue to debate, whose history is represented in shared spaces. Those decisions have often been contested, and some removals have since been reversed. The result raises questions not only about what belongs in public space, but also about who has the final say and how competing views should be weighed. 

“Taken both individually and collectively, Suchak's deeply compelling photographs provide human-scale opportunities for reflection,” said Meg Kennedy, curator of material culture and co-chair of UVA’s Art in Library Spaces committee. “Presented within their historical context, the images invite Library visitors to encounter and explore significant themes and reactions to memorialization.” 

Now several years removed from the events themselves, Suchak sees the photographs differently. “As we look back at the entirety of the movement, I want people to see the physical scale and emotion of this change in our community,” he said. 

The exhibition does not end with the removal of the monuments. Instead, it turns toward what comes next. 

As visitors end their walk through “The Monuments,” they are invited to contribute their own answers to a challenge at the heart of the exhibit: Going forward, how should people and events be memorialized? 

There is no single, simple answer. But the question points toward a larger conversation about the future of public space, and about how history, memory, community, and civic life shape the places we share. 

“The Monuments” is now on view in the third-floor gallery of Shannon Library.

View selected photographs here

The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space New exhibit features photographs by Sanjay Suchak

 

Now open on the third floor of Shannon Library at The University of Virginia:

Who decides what belongs in public space, and what do those choices say about our democracy?

"The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space?," a new exhibit from the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the University of Virginia Library, explores these questions through photographer and former Karsh Institute Practitioner Fellow Sanjay Suchak's images documenting the removal and current status of Confederate monuments across Virginia.

UVA Shannon Library

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

 

Robert E. Lee Monument Overhead, Richmond, Virginia, July 2, 2020

Foundry workers prepare to melt down the face of the Robert E. Lee statue for repurporsing, October, 2023

Images from Sanjay Suchak's work documenting the removal of Confederate iconography across the South have been selected to be part of the major new exhibit "Monuments" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA)

 Via MOCA

Sanjay Suchak

The seated statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury from behind 

MONUMENTS

Co-organized and co-presented by MOCA and The Brick, MONUMENTS marks the recent wave of monument removals as a historic moment. The exhibition reflects on the histories and legacies of post-Civil War America as they continue to resonate today, bringing together a selection of decommissioned monuments, many of which are Confederate, with contemporary artworks borrowed and newly created for the occasion. Removed from their original outdoor public context, the monuments in the exhibition will be shown in their varying states of transformation, from unmarred to heavily vandalized.

Co-curated by Hamza Walker, Director of The Brick; Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator at MOCA; and Kara Walker, artist; with Hannah Burstein, Curatorial Associate at The Brick; and Paula Kroll, Curatorial Assistant at MOCA, MONUMENTS considers the ways public monuments have shaped national identity, historical memory, and current events.   

Following the racially motivated mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC (2015) and the deadly 'Unite the Right' rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA (2017), alongside Bree Newsome’s powerful removal of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse (2015), the United States witnessed the decommissioning of nearly 200 monuments. These removals prompted a national debate that remains ongoing. MONUMENTS aims to historicize these discussions in our current moment and provide a space for crucial discourse and active engagements about challenging topics.  

MONUMENTS features newly commissioned artworks by contemporary artists Bethany Collins, Abigail DeVille, Karon Davis, Stan Douglas, Kahlil Robert Irving, Cauleen Smith, Kevin Jerome Everson, Walter Price, Monument Lab, Davóne Tines and Julie Dash, and Kara Walker. Additional artworks by Leonardo Drew, Torkwase Dyson, Nona Faustine, Jon Henry, Hugh Mangum, Martin Puryear, Andres Serrano, and Hank Willis Thomas, are borrowed from private collectors and institutions. 

The exhibition presents decommissioned monuments borrowed from the City of Baltimore, Maryland; the City of Montgomery, Alabama; The Jefferson School for African American Heritage, Charlottesville, Virginia; the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond; the Valentine, Richmond, Virginia; and The Daniels Family Charitable Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina. By juxtaposing these objects with contemporary works, the exhibition expands the context in which they are understood and highlights the gaps and omissions in popular narratives of American history.  

MONUMENTS will be accompanied by a scholarly publication and a robust slate of public and educational programming.

MONUMENTS is co-organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and The Brick. MONUMENTS is co-curated by Hamza Walker, Director, The Brick; artist Kara Walker; and Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator, MOCA; with Hannah Burstein, Curatorial Associate, The Brick; and Paula Kroll, Assistant Curator, MOCA.

Presenting support is provided by the Mellon Foundation.

Images from Sanjay Suchak's work documenting the removal of Confederate iconography across the South have been selected to be part of the major new exhibit "Monuments" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) which is co-curated by The Brick. In addition to being a part of the exhibit, Suchak's photo featuring the seated statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury from behind was selected to be the exhibition poster and the cover of the exhibition catalog book.

NY Times: "The year’s most audacious and contentious new show brings out — after years of wrangling, and with heightened security — nearly a dozen Confederate memorials removed from view in the last decade."

NY Times: Kara Walker Deconstructs a Statue, and a Myth

As part of the group exhibition “Monuments,” the artist took a Stonewall Jackson bronze and transformed it into a radically new, unsettled thing.

The Guardian: Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: how US artist Kara Walker transformed a Confederate monument; The sweeping exhibition Monuments, which features 19 contemporary artists, opens in LA on 23 October

Sanjay Suchak

A worker stands with downed statue of Stonewall Jackson

NY Times Features Gallery Photographer Sanjay Suchak's Photographs of Removal of Confederate Statues

 Via The New York Times

April 17, 2022

Sanjay Suchak: Removing Jackson, Richmond, Virginia, July 1, 2020

RICHMOND, Va. — As Devon Henry and his construction team take down the last remnants of statues that long dotted this former capital of the Confederacy, they have developed a grim game.

Random passers-by, some in vehicles, others on foot, often make known their disapproval of Mr. Henry’s work — so often, in fact, that Mr. Henry, who is Black, began to keep count of the many times he or a Black crew member were called an incendiary racial slur.

The count is 72 and climbing, according to Mr. Henry, who has emerged as the go-to statue remover not only for this city, but for all of Virginia and other parts of the South. (Full article)

Monroe Gallery will exhibit Sanjay Suchak's photographs at the AIPAD Photography Show in New York May 20 - 22 in booth #113

TENSE MOMENTS: Photography exhibit looks at current news events that have impacted the era

 

Via The Albuquerque Journal

Sunday, June 13, 2021

By Kathaleen Roberts

David Butow. U.S. Capitol, defenders of democracy, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2021. 

(Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

In a time ravaged by a pandemic, an insurrection and police killings of Black citizens, Monroe Gallery of Photography will show a series capturing it all.

For 20 years, the gallery has hung mainly historic photographs by such legends as Margaret Bourke-White, Harry Benson and Tony Vaccaro, although it has long included current work in its group shows. Past exhibits have paired Black Lives Matter images with photographs of the 1964 Selma March.

Opening June 18, “Present Tense” marks Monroe’s first multi-journalist exhibition of current news events during this epoch-changing era. It was time to pause the rush of virtual imagery with its storm of constantly flickering perceptions, gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said.

Ashley Gilbertson. A mixture of tear gas discharged by police and fire extinguisher residue discharged by pro-Trump extremists hangs in the air of the Rotunda as the crowd milled about, Jan. 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

“This is a first,” she said. “It seems obvious to us that we are living in a completely unique history. The question of survivability is upon us. We wanted people to stand before this moment and stay with it.”

David Butow’s print of National Guardsmen sprawled across the U.S. Capitol floor after the Jan. 6 insurrection coincidentally captured the New Mexico statue of Po’Pay, the leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

During the pandemic, Butow also shot an image of a masked couple walking the Hoboken, New Jersey boardwalk with an ominous Manhattan skyline in the background.

David Butow. With the skyline of lower Manhattan in the background, a couple strolls the boardwalk in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 18, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

The hazy light in Ashley Gilbertson’s image of the Capitol Rotunda reveals a chilling truth.

“Ashley said the air inside was filled with teargas, bear spray and the fire extinguishers they had carried in,” co-owner Sidney Monroe said.

Gilbertson’s shot of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman frames him in a doorway beneath the raised hands of insurrectionists.

“To the left of him you can see the stairway that he led them through away from the Senate,” Michelle Monroe said. “It recalls the man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square” in 1989.

Ryan Vizzions. The Nation’s Capitol, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

Gilbertson also captured the sense of desperation and despair in his photo of a food line in New York’s Chinatown during the pandemic.

Ryan Vizzions’ photo of the U.S. Capitol through its new fencing encapsulates the story of the insurrection’s aftermath. The photographer also shot an image of the late Civil Rights leader Sen. John Lewis marching in Atlanta.

Sanjay Suchak. The Graduate, Robert E. Lee Monument, Richmond, Virginia, June 8, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

Sanjay Suchak’s eerie photo of Charlottesville marchers at the University of Virginia Rotunda appears almost reverent until you realize they are white supremacists. Suchak also produced a compelling image of a college graduate giving a triumphant Black Power salute in front of a graffiti-scrawled Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia.

Sanjay Suchak. White Supremacists march at the Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11, 2017. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

New Mexico photographer Gabriela Campos shot a scene closer to home when she photographed an Ohkay Owingeh dancer atop the empty platform where a statue of Don Juan de Oñate once stood in Rio Arriba County. She also cemented a picture of COVID-19 exhaustion in her portrait of a trio of masked nurses at Santa Fe’s St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

“The impact and urgency of some of these photographs were immediately iconic,” Sidney Monroe said. “Sometimes it takes decades. We don’t need to wait a decade to look back.”

If you go

WHAT: “Present Tense”

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily June 18 through Aug. 22

HOW MUCH: Free at 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com