Future Memory

Latest Episodes:

Plot of Land - Ep. 3: Just Oil Wells on These City Streets Apr 06, 2023

Show notes

What happens when the place we call home, the communities we form around it, and our sense of safety, is at the mercy of forces far outside of our control? We visit Long Beach, in Los Angeles, where oil and gas pipelines have jeopardized people’s homes and security.

Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond, Mark Nieto @COMBATmusic
Interviewees:
- Lisa Nieto
- Jacqueline Casillas
- Robert Davis
- Sarah Elkind Ph.D
- Ashley Hernandez; Affiliate Twitter: @CBECal, @STAND_LA

Plot of Land - Ep. 2: They’re Trying to Lure Homeowners to Sell Apr 06, 2023

Show notes

Have you ever seen billboards on the highway offering cash for houses? Has a stranger called you offering money for your home sight unseen? In Plot of Land’s second episode, we wade into the world of housing speculation, considering how private equity markets and real estate investment trusts have transformed the places we literally call home. How did housing become such a profitable market? And so volatile that it could lead to the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Reporters: Jameela Hammond @JameelaHammond , Anya Groner @anyagroner
Interviewees:
- Nikil Saval; Twitter: @SenatorSaval
- Desiree Fields; Twitter: @fieldsdesiree
- Daniel Aldana Cohen; Twitter: @aldatweets
- Tara Raghuveer; Twitter: @taraghuveer
- Luke Melonakos-Harrison; Twitter:@l_melo_h

Plot of Land - Ep. 1: Location, Location, Location Mar 30, 2023

Show notes

Plot of Land dives into the history of land ownership through the emerging future: real estate in the Metaverse. In creating virtual land, we could make literally anything true, from universal public space to zero gravity, so why have people chosen to replicate real-world patterns of land use when we know they are highly inequitable, exploitative, and unjust? In this first episode, we meet the Plot of Land team of producers and go deep into the ways land, housing, and memory intertwine.

Reporters: Jameela Hammond, Irina Zhorov
Interviewees:
- Mike Borden; IG: mikebborden
- Allan Greer, P.h.D
- Louis Rosenberg, P.h.D; Twitter: @LouisBRosenberg
- Alexander Cho, P.h.D; Twitter:@alexcho47
- K-Sue Park; Twitter: @ksuenamu
- Lars Andreas Doucet, Twitter: @larsiusprime

Plot of Land - Trailer Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

Plot of Land is a podcast mini-series by Monument Lab that explores how land ownership and housing in the United States have been shaped by power, public memory, and privatization. Over the last year, we have assembled a team of storytellers and reporters to explore the invisible forces that shape both the land and story of this country. The podcast breaks down how race, class, land, and power have been used to create unfair systems that harm nearly everyone today. We believe that to build the future we deserve, there must be a radical change in our approaches to policy and practice. Join us to remap and rethink land ownership. Major support for Plot of Land has been provided by the Ford Foundation.

Future Memory Takes Flight with Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

This episode, co-host Li Sumpter, caught up with multidisciplinary artist, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh at the onset of her mural project, Flight. Tatyana sees flying as a metaphor for liberation, escape, and transformation. She informs and illuminates this vision through the experiences, hopes, and dreams of everyday people who dare to look up. Li and Tatyana dig into the layered meaning of flying and share some of the literary and pop culture inspirations for Flight. From Toni Morrison to Kendrick Lamar, this conversation connects the souls of black folx and airborne archetypes across history, myth, and the radical black imagination that knows no bounds.

Reading the Rocky Statue with Paul Farber Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, co-host Li Sumpter turns the mic to Future Memory co-host and Monument Lab Director, Paul Farber, to go behind-the-scenes on the production of his new podcast project The Statue from WHYY digital studios and the NPR podcast network. The series investigates one of Philly’s most monumental destinations visited by millions from around the world each year --- the Rocky Statue. Li and Paul discuss some of the local and global stories that make the history of the statue as epic as the legend of the under-dog boxer turned worldwide hero. Tune in for Paul’s take on the hope and controversy the statue stirs up and why Rocky – "the greatest Philadelphian who never lived" – continues to have a firm grip on our collective memory.

A Crack in the Hourglass: An Ongoing COVID-19 Memorial with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Sekou Cooke (Live at the Brooklyn Museum) Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

For this episode, we take a trip to the Brooklyn Museum with Future Memory co-host Paul Farber where he moderated a program for the popular discussion series Brooklyn Talks. How can we memorialize and visualize the extraordinary loss of life caused by COVID-19? Farber explores this question in a dynamic exchange between Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Sekou Cooke – two powerful practitioners working in separate but intersecting fields. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a media artist working at the crossroads of architecture and performance art. ⁠Sekou Cooke is an architect, researcher, and founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Monument Lab: Future Memory was a part of documentation of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s A Crack in the Hourglass, An Ongoing COVID-19 Memorial – an participatory exhibition and “anti-monument” installation previously on view at the Brooklyn Museum and the inspiration for this public conversation. Lozano-Hemmer's project demonstrates the power and possibility of re-imagining the existence of monuments in physical and digital space. On this night at the Museum in May 2022, marking a somber milestone of one million COVID deaths in the US, Farber, Cooke and Lozano-Hemmer discuss the role public art plays in remembrance, collective mourning and healing communities.

Building a Monument for Dr. Maya Angelou with Lava Thomas Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

This episode, co-host Paul Farber speaks to multidisciplinary artist Lava Thomas. They catch up about a major project a long time in the making – a monument honoring Dr. Maya Angelou – prolific poet, Civil Rights activist, and American memoirist. The monument is slated for installation outside of San Francisco’s main public library in the near future. Lava’s monumental journey begins with bike tours with her family in Washington D.C. and makes a sharp turn in when she learned monuments had the power to embody ideology and ignite a movement.

Leaving a Future Record Behind with Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson of ConsenSIS Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

We kickoff a new season of the Monument Lab podcast Future Memory with Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson, two renowned former poet laureates of Philadelphia. Wisher and Mayson are the creators of ConsenSIS, a project that summons “sisterly history” to preserve the past and present literary legacy of Black women and femme poets in Philadelphia. ConsenSIS is a part of Monument Lab’s nationwide Re:Generation project, supported by the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project. Co-host Li Sumpter speaks to Wisher and Mayson about ConsenSIS, their upcoming event, The Clearing (inspired by Toni Morrison), and the meaningful historic images and authors that guide their project’s vision.

Monumental “Local Diaspora” in St. Louis with MADAD’s Damon Davis, Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, and De Nichols Jul 21, 2020

Show notes

Welcome back to the Monument Lab podcast. This episode, we focus on St. Louis. For the past two years, Monument Lab has worked closely with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, mapping monuments in St. Louis. That includes traditional landmarks and unofficial sites of memory, whether they are existing, potential, or erased. To mark the close of our project together, we wanted to speak with locally-rooted MADAD, a brilliant and thoughtful collective of artists and designers from St. Louis whose work illuminates spatial injustice and cultural memory gaps in the region.

MADAD’s Damon Davis, Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, and De Nichols work to reimagine how joy, justice, and interactivity improve public spaces. The group started their collaborations during the making of Mirror Casket, a sculpture, performance, and visual call to action composed in the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. Mirror Casket is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Their new project, Black Memory STL: Division, Displacement, and Local Diaspora, is a multi-year series of public art installations and interventions in partnership with the Brickline Greenway development and the Griot Museum of Black History.

MADAD are also 2020 Monument Lab Fellows, and are featured in the exhibition and book project, Shaping the Past with the Goethe Institut and the German Federal Agency for Civic Education.

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