City Hall

3. I wanted something to represent the indigenous history of Charlottesville in a place that means so much to me. I needed to contextualize my joy in the pain of stolen land. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there’s no marker of the Monacan nation downtown, so instead I decided to focus on people who do (italics) get to be remembered publically: the founding fathers. UVa and Charlottesville are (naturally and understandably) obsessed with founding fathers, but these imposing statues are demanding. What does it mean to put colonizers' faces on city hall? I was unable to find any information about when this building was erected. Instead of focusing on these men, I decided to focus on the flowers nearby. While these are planted not native plants, I still think we can pay homage to the landscape that was destroyed to create Charlottesville by using indigenous forms of knowledge and understanding, and focusing on nature and prioritizing nature over the founding fathers is one way to start.