Goethe Pop Up Kansas City is excited to present the poster exhibition Shaping the Past. This exhibit will also highlight the many projects that we developed in 2020 as part of Shaping the Past (“Gestaltung der Vergangenheit”).

Shaping the Past builds connections and showcases patterns that constitute a transnational memory culture at work to address systemic racism and sexism, social and economic exclusion, and legacies of colonial and state violence. Featuring works by artists, activists, and collectives from North America and Germany — all part of the Monument Lab Fellows Program — this exhibition broadens understandings and illuminates ongoing memory interventions that reimagine civil society.

The spotlighted projects offer innovative and reparative models that highlight creative changemakers who are actively shaping the past and our paths forward.

At Goethe Pop Up Kansas City we took part in this project in 2020, inviting Monument Lab fellows Alisha B. Wormsley and Patrick Weems to collaborate with artists, activists, and intellectuals from Kansas City and beyond on themes that are relevant to our community and the process of (re-)connecting with the past. You can learn more about these various projects by visiting the Shaping the Pastexhibition presented at the Goethe Pop Up as a concluding project.