Guerrilla History

Installation from National Register, by Anna Robinson-Sweet

What makes a place special? There's a distinction between spots that are individually meaningful--maybe the house where your grandparents lived, or a garden that you loved--and a location we describe as a landmark. What's the difference? Is it a matter of scale and scope? Does it depend on who an event affects--whether they're rich, powerful, white, public figures?

Brooklyn artist Anna Robinson-Sweet takes issue with the somewhat arbitrary criteria that designate a particular building as more important than others. Her new project borrows from the National Park Service initiatives to recognize historic locales. It consists of adhering faux plaques to spots around the nabe. They tell the story of industry, shops, and the life of people whose actions might not have changed the course of the history, but still matter. (She randomly chose the "landmarks" on old fire station maps.) I love how this forces us to think critically about narratives, and how we evaluate whose to remember. Check out National Register here.