Paris, a monument to victims of slavery will rise in the Tuileries: call for artists begins

In Paris, the Tuileries Garden, the sumptuous park that lies between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde and was created by Catherine de Medici in 1564 as the garden of the Tuileries Palace, will host, probably in 2021, a monument dedicated to the victims of slavery. This was made known last week by France’s Ministry of Culture: Culture Minister Franck Riester and Minister of Overseas Departments Annick Girardin issued a call for artists who will be tasked with designing the work, creating it, and installing it in the garden.

The project, the culture ministry points out, will express the desire to honor the victims of slavery and recognize their contribution to the nation. The monument will thus be a place of memory and historical transmission endowed with a strong educational dimension: it will be placed in a significant location near the Jeu de Paume. Evaluating the artists’ projects will be a committee of qualified personalities, which will produce a guiding document with the objectives that the work will have to fulfill. The committee will consist of personalities active in the fields of contemporary art, preservation of historical monuments, and the history of slavery (and its abolition).

This is actually not a new project, born on the wave of protests in recent days: it is a work that France has been meditating on since 2016, when then-president of the republic François Hollande established a foundation with the goal of creating a memorial to slavery. The project was then taken up in 2018 by his successor Emmanuel Macron, who, that year, expressed a willingness to continue the path, which, however, in this timeframe has not made big strides, on the contrary: the idea had so far fallen into oblivion.

Now, the Ministry of Culture, last June 5, finally published the call for applications, which is addressed to all artists interested in participating. Applications are open until September 1, 2020: the committee will select a shortlist of a minimum of three and a maximum of five artists from which, in early 2021, the name of the winner will emerge. And if all goes well, the monument will be ready by the fall of 2021. The work will remain state property.

Pictured: the Tuileries garden. Ph. Credit

Paris, a monument to victims of slavery will rise in the Tuileries: call for artists begins

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