MFA candidate Annie Simpson’s work as a 2019 National Fellow (as part of Take Action Chapel Hill Collective) with Monument Lab will be in part of a Shaping the Past, a partnership between Monument Lab, the Goethe-Institut, and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (German Federal Agency for Civic Education). The collaborative initiative consists of a public conference that will take place during Monument Lab’s annual Town Hall (October 8-10, 2020), a multi-site exhibition curated by Monument Lab and presented by Goethe-Institut North America (in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, DC), and a multilingual book that documents the transnational conversations around public memory as envisioned by the artists, activists, and their collaborators.

The project facilitates a transnational exchange program bringing artists and activists together in dialogue to highlight ongoing critical memory interventions in sites and spaces in North America and Germany. Shaping the Past supports civic practitioners, artists, and activists who critically reimagine monuments and emerges from the ongoing Monument Lab Fellows program. These collaborations and conversations offer innovative models for how we might memorialize the past, create dialogue, and strengthen democracy through public spaces across the globe.

Take Action Chapel Hill (Maya Little, Gina Balamucki, and Annie Simpson) is a grassroots activist coalition based in Chapel Hill, NC. Formed in August 2018 to support anti-racist activists facing charges related to protests against white supremacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, they created the Anti-Racist Activist Fund which provides support for current and future defendants in the struggle against white supremacy in Chapel Hill and surrounding areas. Their organizing efforts led to the takedown of the contentious confederate monument Silent Sam and ongoing efforts to challenge narratives of campus history related to Civil War and racial justice.

Annie Simpson (b. 1997, Charlotte) is a multi-/inter-/un- disciplined artist (& troublemaker) making work in Athens, Georgia. Currently, she is an MFA student & graduate research assistant in interdisciplinary arts research at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. She holds a BFA (highest honors with distinction) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her projects have been supported by the Center for Documentary Studies (Duke University) and the Center for the Study of the American South (UNC-CH), among others, and her work has been exhibited at the Mint Museum (Charlotte), Deli Gallery (Brooklyn, forthcoming), Purdue University, the Carrack (Durham), and the Goethe-Instituts across North America (Boston, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, DC, forthcoming). She’s contributed to Found Review (Stockholm), and was a 2019 National Fellow (with Take Action Chapel Hill collective).