Let the Light Shine: Reclaiming Public Space Through Digital Projection

Authors

Katherine D. Lind, University of North Carolina

Description

Amid the racial uprisings of 2017 and 2020, digital projections emerged as a mode of protest contributing to the calls for removal of Confederate monuments. These digital projections, I argue, created a dialogue between the contested Confederate monuments (the past) and their contemporary surroundings (the present). By examining the digital projections that were cast upon the Albert Pike Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, I demonstrate how they employed a palimpsest to facilitate discourse concerning public memorialization practices and to re-contextualize and reclaim contested sites into spaces for community engagement.

Publication Date

1-1-2025

Publisher

Howard Journal of Communication-Routledge

Keywords

Lost cause memorialization; palimpsest; public memory; vernacular; Public Spaces; Communication; Monuments; Race; Racism; History; Sculpture

Department

Communication Studies

Comments

Howard Journal of Communications 2025, VOL. 36, NO. 2, 143–159; https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2024.2326218

Recommended Citation

Lind, Katherine D., "Let the Light Shine: Reclaiming Public Space Through Digital Projection" (2025). Communication Studies Faculty Works. 61.
https://openriver.winona.edu/communicationstudiesfacultyworks/61

Unique Identifier

2025-Lind-Let the Light Shine