As the city evaluates and collects community feedback on which of its outdated monuments to replace, the SF Arts Commission recently selected five innovative artists to create temporary installations honoring communities often left out of the civic narrative.
The San Francisco Arts Commission began auditing the city's collection of public monuments back in 2023 as part of its ongoing Mellon-funded Shaping Legacy Project, when it hired an outside agency to compile a list of the city's 98 monuments, as SFist reported previously. Since then, the commission has been gathering community feedback on the existing monuments and adding historical context to some works, as ABC 7 reports.
In recent years, the city removed the Christopher Columbus statue outside Coit Tower and the controversial “Early Days” monument in Civic Center, both of which drew criticism for their depictions of colonialism and the treatment of Indigenous people.
Officials have also questioned the relevance of several monuments honoring historical figures with little or no connection to San Francisco, including statues of Irish nationalist Robert Emmet, South American liberator Simón Bolívar, and Mexican independence leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla.
Arts Commissioner Charles Collins tells ABC 7 the goal is not to erase history, but to provide greater context and ensure that future public art reflects community perspectives and a broader range of experiences.
“San Francisco is the epicenter of a really wonderful set of histories that we now can begin to open up more, explore and bring others in their own way into the dialog as opposed to, we with authority say what it should be," said Collins, speaking to ABC 7.
In April, the Arts Commission announced a new Mellon Foundation-funded initiative, which will feature five artists’ temporary installations throughout the city. Set to debut in October, the installations use media such as light, textiles, performance, and augmented reality to highlight histories of labor, migration, displacement, and other stories often absent from traditional monuments.
The commission also points to more recent efforts to broaden representation in public art, including Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman, which honors Maya Angelou. According to ABC 7, officials and community members have also called for greater recognition of figures such as William Leidesdorff, one of San Francisco's earliest Black civic leaders, and for more acknowledgment of the role Chinese Americans played in building the city's infrastructure, agriculture, and labor history.
In a column for the Chronicle last month, Collins argues that the city should distinguish between memorials, which reflect on historical events and losses, and monuments, which celebrate civic values.
“In Washington, DC, for example, the Lincoln Memorial stands as a solemn reflection on the Civil War’s human tragedy,” writes Collins, “while the Washington Monument celebrates the enduring idea of democracy embodied in a new nation.”
Collins writes that San Francisco should memorialize the genocide of the Ramaytush Ohlone and other Indigenous people while creating new monuments that reflect contemporary values and a broader range of community experiences.
The temporary installations selected through the Shaping Legacy Project initiative will reportedly honor Black workers at Hunters Point Shipyard as well as Chinese American and Central American garment workers.
Collins says he hopes the works spark discussion and encourage residents to think more critically about how the city represents its history in public spaces.
Previously: SF Performing an Audit of City’s 98 Statues to Determine If Any Should Be Removed for Being Racist or Sexist
Image: A statue of Irish nationalist Robert Emmett, by Victor Hugo Barrenchea-Villegas, a gift from the Venezuelan government in 1981; Wally Gobetz/Flickr
