Memorial stickers commemorate everyday people and places

September 8, 2017 4:45 PM

“The first one I did was from my friend Matt, who told me about this time he was trying to romance this girl when he was at Villanova, and they drove to South Philly. He parked on the median, and they sat on the roof and ate pizza, and that was something he would always think about when he went to Broad and Snyder.”

plaque2thefuture is an art project by Lily Godspeed (via 99% invisible)
posted by rebent (14 comments total)

Brilliant! Love it.
posted by Miko at 4:56 PM on September 8, 2017

On this website...
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:18 PM on September 8, 2017

Ahh, so great.
posted by notyou at 5:34 PM on September 8, 2017

I love this kind of thing. Thanks for sharing it!
posted by Room 641-A at 5:46 PM on September 8, 2017

That's the sort of public art I love, thank you for sharing!
posted by lepus at 6:31 PM on September 8, 2017

I love this. So much better than a virtual annotation app.
posted by craniac at 9:00 PM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is this not inherently a celebration of a kind of quietism, that is entirely consistent with inactivity and conservativism? To suggest that these prosaic events are actually equivalent to what is normally commemorated on a plaques is actually rather shocking.

What is the aim of heroising the unheroic? What is the political effect of such an intervention?

There is something disturbing about this tendency to "democratise greatness" that in the end is completely deflationary towards actual sacrifice for the sake of something socially and politically important. The early trade unionists, the civil rights activists, the suffragettes, they were not content with the prosaic and some of them put their actual lives at stake, and were killed.

There is something utterly contemptuous of true sacrifice inherent in this heroisation of the prosaic that only seems to lead to a future of clicktivism and eventually quietism.
posted by mary8nne at 12:57 AM on September 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think things like this every time I pass a place where something quite specific and personal occurred, regardless of how inane or dramatic or inconsequential others might find it.
"That's the park where he kissed me for the first time."
"That's the corner where I helped that lost little girl fix her bike and find her way home."
"That's the random yard where I snuck water from the hose that one day when it was scorching hot and I still had an hour's walk to get home."

I love the concept and don't see any problem with co-opting an established style to share or communicate something that I think everyone can relate to. There's nothing disturbing or dangerous about it. It's funny. It's universal, both in idea origin and display method. Prosaic is in the eye of the beholder, and who's to say I attach any great significance to someone else's "real" plaque, anyway? Let me decide what's worth commemorating. My sacrifice that one day at that one restaurant where that one thing happened is a #neverforget moment that I'll carry with me forever. The aim is- It's ART. It's HUMOR. It MAKES YOU THINK. If you have some other reaction, then forgive me for saying so but, maybe you're doing it wrong?

We are all humans who are allowed to have an opinion. Personally, I find it utterly contemptuous when others set themselves up as arbiters of what I'm supposed to appreciate or value. Any time that occurs, I'm for sure gonna resist it.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:24 AM on September 9, 2017 [8 favorites]

Most of life is a series of small moments shared with just a handful of people. Some of these are particularly funny or poignant or otherwise something you'll remember for the rest of your life, even on an otherwise ordinary forgettable day. I think this is a fun way to share those small stories, and I'd be delighted to come across one.

Plus, cmon. These are stickers, not giant stone monuments or permanently installed metal plaques.
posted by Fig at 6:44 AM on September 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

These Portland Redline District signs were put up in my neighborhood 15 years ago (back before it was fully gentrified.)
posted by vespabelle at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'd be delighted to come across one.

I definitely want to know if I'm standing where someone snatched a pigeon from the sky.

I think the world would be a better place if we had more of these, in many different forms.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2017 [4 favorites]

Every single one of these is placed at a location I know very well. Lily knows her South Philly.
posted by scalefree at 3:22 PM on September 9, 2017

There is something utterly contemptuous of true sacrifice inherent in this heroisation of the prosaic

Especially in a day and age in which overt expressions of authoritarian oppression in monumentalisation are at issue, I welcome any such attempt to subvert the tropes of public memorialization and replace them with the voices and memories of the common people - however trivial these may seem, the project has strong political resonance. It irritates because it is doing its work.
posted by Miko at 6:14 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

As the saying goes, Save the whales doesn't mean kill the dolphins. A plaque celebrating small momemts does not dimish grander accomplishments.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:40 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]