Contribution short abstract:

Responding to the challenge of the panel call to “reconceptualize the world around us” through feminist approaches, this paper will reflect on the potential effects of a feminist critique of traditional commemorative practices and the possibilities of imagining new feminist public memoryscapes

Contribution long abstract:

Taking the recent (March 2024) statement by the Danish minister of culture that the lack of female statues in Copenhagen (and Denmark) is “crazy” as a point of departure, this paper will take a feminist approach to public commemorative practices and materializations.

Thinking through examples of traditional statues and monuments as well as experimental works of public commemoration the paper will present reflections on the potential effects of feminist approaches to public memoryscapes.

The ‘hegemonic discourses’ of the paper title are deliberately ambiguous, as the reflections in the paper will challenge both the dominance of male statues in public spaces and the practice of commemorating through materializations in traditional monumental statues. How can critical questions informed by feminist theory help us imagine new memoryscapes or new materialized discourses and commemorative practices in public spaces? Can Donna Haraway’s cyborgs who are irreverent to their problematic fathers help us reconfigure - or indeed redeem - the traditional statues and monuments, or would Audre Lorde’s call to dismantle the master's house by introducing new tools provide helpful imaginaries?