Somewhere between then and now and now and next, “Beyond Granite: Pulling Together” (2023) briefly transformed the National Mall in Washington, DC, boldly asking what an expanded vision of democracy might be. Organized by the Trust for the National Mall, the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service, and Monument Lab, with sponsorship from the Mellon Foundation, this ambitious, month-long exhibition—the inaugural edition of what is still envisioned to be an ongoing program—added fresh stories to the familiar thematics of memorials and sparked new conversations as it took us on a meandering stroll through America’s Front Yard. Curators Salamishah Tillet and David Farber, director of Monument Lab, chose Derrick Adams, Tiffany Chung, Ashon T. Crawley, vanessa german, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and Wendy Red Star for the pilot program. All six artists, some of them new to public projects, rocked established norms, raising difficult questions about agency and representation while offering hope and possibility for a broader vision of our fundamental freedoms.

One of the most striking things about the show was its diversity of approach. Each artist employed a distinctive visual language while delivering opportunities for interaction and moments of surprise. Together, the impact of their works was undeniable, especially on unsuspecting tourists, with individual sites and aesthetic choices hinting at the artists’ aims. Red Star, german, and Adams researched specific places as springboards to explore themes of redress, belonging, and community. Inspired by archival materials from the 1880 Crow delegation to Washington, DC, Red Star, a citizen of Crow Nation who proudly recognizes the DNA of her ancestral land and people, gave shape to broken treaties and land displacement in the contemplative The Soil You See… Nestled on an islet within Constitution Gardens, the installation—a clear glass cast of her enlarged thumbprint ridged in red with the names of 50 Crow tribal leaders who signed treaties with the U.S. Government—stood in sharp contrast to the adjacent Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial, a stone monument with its 56 names etched in gold.

Equally poignant in terms of agency and wholeness, german’s nine-foot-high Of Thee We Sing infused a powerful collective spirituality into its joyous celebration of Marian Anderson’s historic 1939 performance on the Mall after she was barred from singing at Constitutional Hall in segregation-era DC. The figure, who stood her ground at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, was clad in a blue gown that recalled indigo’s complicated ties to slavery and its healing properties; a base of upheld hands, Sandhof lilies, historical photographs, and reflective mirrors brought visitors into the tableau. At the other end of the reflecting pool, Adams’s hard-to-resist America’s Playground: DC had kids of all backgrounds happily playing on the equipment. Using a period photo of the previously all-white Edgewood Park from the DC Public Library archives, Adams created a photographic mural backdrop that halved the playground area, with one side monochrome and the other in color. In its final form, the project breathed life into the 1954 integration of public playgrounds in the nation’s capital.

Chung, Crawley, and Ramirez drew on lived experience to talk about movement and action on a global level. In For the Living, Chung mined her past as a refugee from Vietnam to explore exile and immigration while more specifically underscoring how wars involve more than one side and challenging the nearby Vietnam Memorial, which honors only U.S. and not Vietnamese soldiers. At first, the work read as a colored sprawl of plastic balls linked by nylon ropes. Gradually a world map emerged (especially when seen from an elevated position), charting the paths of Southeast Asian migrants and Vietnamese refugees. Close to the Sylvan Theater and the 1987 display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, Crawley‘s HOMEGOING channeled Black queerness and devotional music into a sonic shrine dedicated to all those who have died from AIDS. Like Chung’s work, from a distance, this low, bright blue configuration belied its impassioned message. Things became clear once visitors entered its range—the maze-like structure provided seating as whispered words at once transported and centered the listener, their lingering presence forging an invisible bridge between the living and the dead.

Sound was also the catalyst in Ramirez’s 20-foot-high Let Freedom Ring. The artist, who grew up in Honduras, recalled how, through movies, he first saw the Mall as a symbol of democracy and then, similar to the experience of re-reading a children’s book, his perception evolved as he matured, especially after he moved to the U.S. Fittingly sited near the entrance to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, his work featured a carillon of 32 bells that hung from intersecting, steel arches. When activated by a lever, they rang out “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” one of the songs that Marian Anderson performed in 1939 and that Martin Luther King adapted in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech on the Mall. Visitors were invited to play the tune’s final note on a 600-pound bell at the tower’s base as they considered how to complete an inscription that read, “I want to be free to:” followed by an empty line.

Memorials and monuments have a tall order to fill. No matter their scale, they need to feel impressive. They need to be accessible as well as larger than life. They can’t only be relics: they must be relevant to our time and to future generations. And though they might not be able to mobilize change, the successful ones can elicit alternative perspectives and generate new conversations. Over the course of its history, the Mall has been many things. From the home of the Nacotchtank and later European settlers to a site enclosed by the White House and the Capitol Building, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, it is now a gathering place and the stage of America’s national psyche. “Beyond Granite: Pulling Together” took enormous risks in questioning conventions of subject and form and gave us much to mull over. The artists’ creative acts of civic engagement boldly reimagined the nation’s premier site of commemoration, action, and debate. As temporary works, they seemed better suited to honoring shifting realities and paradigms, their empathetic vision substantively enlarging the pool of placemakers and forming a resounding chorus of individual and collective voices. Perhaps, their biggest gift was showing how value is created and how the stories we tell ourselves and each other can nurture a more inclusive future.
A new iteration of “Beyond Granite” is being planned for the future. The Trust for the National Mall is currently working on an American Semiquincentennial-themed art exhibition. For more information, visit beyondgranite.org and nationalmall250.org.