Making Memories and Place Together : Monumental Conversations and Novaby
Memories can be our most prized and painful possessions. Our memories provide us with a record of things we never want to forget, and things that we wish we didn’t have to remember. In this way, memories are a kind of double-edged sword which can cut both ways. Even though we might wish the power to wield this sword at our command, the way memories can crop up shows how they can be out of our control. Memories can exert their own power over us.
Even though memories have long been part of the human experience, we still are not sure where they come from and how do they get created. Science is still trying to understand how neurons in our brain communicate with each other to create those images and sensations that we come to recognize as memories. At the same time, limiting the examination of memory to what happens in our minds ignores how memories are formed in the collective mind of society and culture. Memories are not just ours to make; they are made by others for us as well.
Sociologist Barry Schwartz has written extensively on the idea of collective memory. He has examined how memories and our understanding of past events is co-created as discourse around past moments shapes our understanding of those moments. In other words, moments become memories not just in our own minds, but how people talk about them and the ways in which society preserves them. We remember the past not just on our own, but as a people. When memories define who we are as a people, the ways in which they are constructed become more important and increasingly contested.
Julia Beabout and the company Novaby know all about creating a sense of place through the capturing and sharing of memories. Novaby is an award-winning company that works in augmented and virtual reality. Among the projects that they have worked on is Monumental Conversations, an effort to reimagine parts of Richmond, Virginia which were home to statues celebrating the Confederacy in the Civil War. Those statues served as a memory of a way of life in which people were treated as property, and social structures were put in place to keep them subjected to violence and misery. The Civil War may have been about “state’s rights,” but a particular right to enslave and dehumanize. The statues established that past in the present, continuing the sins of the past which the country still is trying to reckon with.
As those statues were removed, the opportunity existed to tell a different kind of history and collective memory. In partnership with the city of Richmond, Richmond Public Schools, and other community stakeholders, Novaby worked to create a mobile phone-based augmented reality tour that brought formerly silenced voices and artists into the construction of memory and place. As the website states, “the tour centers under-told stories of Black resistance and resilience.” A place that felt like it didn’t belong to residents now is reconstituted through a new reality, one that initially exists in virtual form, but hopefully migrates to the everyday experiences of the people who live there.
As with any negotiation, when it comes to making a place there are different parties at the table. Part of the challenge of place making is navigating different memories and meanings when held by different parts of the community. In Julia’s visit to the Experience by Design podcast, she talked about how they tried to address this challenge by taking an inclusive approach in which community participation was key. At the same time, when creating place and collective memories, the idea of equity and truth-seeking must prevail. Not every memory is an accurate one, and founded in historical evidence and not just preferred versions.
It can be a tricky balancing act, and one that Julia Beabout and Novaby welcome. As the opportunities arise and the technology evolves, both will be at the forefront of the efforts to re-remember and represent voices in order to create more inclusive places and meaningful experiences.