Gender, Power, and the Politics of Public Memory

In the volatile political landscape of Trump’s second presidency—defned by executive orders that celebrate a selective version of U.S. history, reinstate Confederate monuments, and criminalize their removal—the politics of public memory have taken on renewed urgency. While these developments are geographically specifc, their implications are not. Across borders, the question of who gets remembered—and how—is increasingly shaped by nationalist, patriarchal, and authoritarian forces. In such a climate, the healing and transformative potential of feminism can seem utopian, even naïve. But it is precisely now that we must ask: How can feminist spatial practices—by artists, curators, and activists— disrupt dominant historical narratives? How do they ofer counter-memories and new ways of inhabiting public space? And how do state sponsored acts of commemoration infuence or even attempt to neutralize these eforts? This will not be a polished or prescriptive talk, but a set of refections on the current frictions, possibilities, and responsibilities of feminist memory work in times of intense polarization.

Mechtild Widrich is Professor and Department Chair in the Art History, Theory and Criticism Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She researches and writes on art in public space, performative and participatory practices, and the theory of the public sphere. Her most recent book Monumental Cares (Manchester University Press 2023) was a fnalist for the best book of the art of the present (ASAP award) and rethinks monument debates, site specifcity, and art activism in light of challenges that strike us as monumental or overwhelming, such as war, migration, and the climate crisis. She studied at the University of Vienna and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD 2009) and has previously taught at the Universities of Vienna, Zurich, Basel and at ETH Zurich, the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.