 Good evening. I'm Christine Barron, assistant professor of social studies and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and I'm pleased to serve as the moderator for this important program tonight, The Four Continents, an open dialogue on Daniel Chester French's Four Continents statues at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House. The Four Continents statues flanked the entrance of the landmark Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House, located at one bowling green, which was designed as part of the city beautiful movement. The statues are often cited as the best example of architectural sculpture of this landmark building. The U.S. Customs House in New York City was once the busiest, most influential customs house in the world. The Custom Service Agency amassed duties that made up roughly 75% of the revenue for the country. Today we are discussing them as we are in a moment in our national history, when we are reckoning with the ways that monuments hold public spaces, ideas, ideologies, and the values that they bring with them into those public spaces. This is part of a larger effort by the National Archives, General Services Administration, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, and Chester Wood, a historic site for Daniel Chester French, partnered together to discuss the problematic public works of art at federal government buildings. This is the second part of a two-part series on the Four Continents statues. The first part, an interview with historian Harold Holzer, is available on YouTube, and the link will be provided for you if you'd like to see that first part. Tonight our panelists include Dr. Michelle Cohen, Curator for the Architect of the Capitol. She has focused on public art throughout her career for serving as the Director of Sculpture Inventory for the Public Design Commission of the City of New York, when she co-authored the Art Commission and Municipal Art Society Guide to Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture. Michelle was the founding Director of New York City's Public Art for Public Schools Program, where she managed acquisitions, conservation of art, and a collection inventory for hundreds of school buildings, and published a comprehensive history of school art and architecture. More recently, she has been a college professor, independent curator, and public art consultant. Her forthcoming chapter entitled, The Preservation Dilemma, Confronting Two Controversial Monuments from the United States Capitol, will appear in the anthology, Teachable Moments, to be published this spring. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you so much for having me. Brent Legs, our other panelists, is the Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Senior Advisor and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Preservation of Civil Rights Sites. Brent authored Preserving African American Historic Places and led the effort to establish the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. From his work to protect Madame C.J. Walker's Villa Loireau in New York, Joe Frazier's Jim in Pennsylvania, and Nina Simone's childhood home in North Carolina, he promotes the equitable interpretation of American history and advocates on behalf of African American Historic Places. Welcome, Brent. Thank you for having me. Before we begin our conversation, I would like to remind the public watching us that this is a live broadcast. So if you have questions or want to tell us from where you're watching, please enter those into the YouTube chat box. We will open up our Q&A to the public near the end of this session. So to begin, in talking about the space in front of the customs house, in any one particular historical space, particularly public spaces, there's never one time period that we are dealing with once outside the origins of that space, but rather with the layers of time and the people that have shaped that space. This space in front of the customs house is deeply layered from the Dutch purchase of Manhattan from the Lenape, to the most recent political protests. In its original iteration, the siting of the statues in front of the customs house were intended to convey messages about the rising economic power of the United States at the turn of the last century. In them, we find all the isms of the age, racism, imperialism, capitalism, Eurocentrism, and so on. And while the aesthetic beauty of the statues as statues remains unchanged, the context in which those statues exist has changed significantly. The spaces around the statues themselves, both in terms of the penance and the functions of the building and the larger society within which they are set remains. Given these layers of history and contradictions in this public space, Michelle and Brent, how do we begin to develop meaningful understandings of these statues in their current context? And how can we address the challenges that they pose to viewers and our civic conversations? I want to throw it out to you. Well, maybe I got to lead off the discussion. I mean, I do agree with Harold Holzer and his recommendation to contextualize these sculptures, the four continents. I don't know that that's always possible in every scenario, but I think it's a very viable approach here. I think there's several key ways to do that, and it's really important for the institution to be self-reflective. I think that's what's happening here by even hosting this discussion and having this host series. And so it's really incumbent on the part of the institution to sort of take ownership of what it is they have, what is their building, what is the art in the building. And in this case, although the federal government now occupies parts of the custom house, in a sense the current institutions are not the original patron. It's a completely different iteration of the government, right? It's no longer serving the custom house. So then I think it's really important to both acknowledge and sort of correct these historical distortions. And the institution here has tremendous opportunity because the aim here really is to educate in terms of what the National Archives is doing, in terms of what the National Museum of American Indian is doing. So I think that there are ways that this can be contextualized. And I'll just sort of throw out some ideas, which I think also have been discussed before. This idea of an artistic dialogue, having artists comment on other art. I mean, in this case, it's not really practical to create four separate monuments next to each of these four continents. And so it might take a virtual form. In other words, you're sort of almost doing projections that would then be shared in a virtual way. I think another really effective strategy is to have audios with multiple voices, so that it's not just one curator with one script with one interpretation. And that's something that's been done, I think, really effectively in Minnesota at the capital in St. Paul, Minnesota. In fact, another building designed by Cass Gilbert, so he was also very involved with that whole artistic program. And there they have tribal representatives, they have state representatives, they have historians who are commenting on these two historical paintings that were removed from a more prominent location and put in a more neutral space. So sometimes you can physically move the art and present it in alternative spaces. Sometimes it's really possible to create an artistic response, for example, what the Metropolitan Museum has recently done with the Monkman historic paintings, which are, you know, just really these fabulous arresting visual commentaries that make visitors just pause and really take note of their surroundings. So, you know, I would agree that these can be contextualized, and I think there's a lot of creative ways to do it. Yeah, I'll just add that I think in this moment, we need to confront our history in the false narratives, they euphemize it so we can begin to heal as a nation. That's what the Black Lives Matter movement is about. That is what this year of 2020, I think that's one of the lessons that it's teaching us, and that we should use this moment to create a more inclusive American landscape and public space that fills our nation's civic identity. I think if we link together meaningful dialogue, history, and the arts, and preservation, our nation can explore how best to communicate the often overlooked contributions of Black and Brown communities to demonstrate our collective and contemporary values in public space. And I feel like if we are able to leverage monuments like this and these kinds of conversations to position history and preservation as a tool for social justice, then I think we will be on the right track. And building on that, so over the last few years, there's been a lot of attention paid to Confederate. But the statues that we're talking about tonight were intended not as memorials, but as allegorical works. So can you talk a little bit about what is the point of the allegorical pieces versus the monuments that have been very much in the news? And Brent, if you can start that. Yeah, I think I would just best describe a monument literally as a story written in the form of material culture. It's a recording of public memory and space and time. It's a recording of the past. I think in essence, monuments are memory, collective memory, and they really stand to express our national values and they shape who we are in this present moment. So I again think we have this opportunity to draw lessons and wisdom from the cultural inequity that is demonstrated in these sculptures and this public art. But the difference between Confederate monuments and this kind of statement in public space, one was meant for racist terrorism, psychological warfare used literally upon the American landscape. And it is a symbol of white power and nationalism. It is in many ways representative of the social values of that community. In my work and at the National Trust, we are preserving cultural monuments to expand the American story. We believe that all diverse communities should be able to see themselves and their history represented in public space and that we have an opportunity in this moment to reimagine monuments, redefine the historical meaning of these objects and artifacts and again to make new public investments that will begin to expand our nation's understanding of itself. Cheryl, do you want to add on there? Well, I think I really appreciate everything that you're saying, Bran. I think one distinction I would make here is this idea of allegory versus commemorative portrait statue. So a commemorative portrait statue specifically honors one individual versus this conceptual sort of generic statement that French is making. He is really reflecting these broader cultural biases, but he's not identifying a specific individual. Of course, because of that, he is using stereotypes and it's offensive on that level. But it's not the same sort of intentional, I would say, domination that you might say a statue in front of a courthouse would have. I don't see so much that four continents are intended to intimidate as much as make this very grand statement. So in terms of memory and this whole idea of sort of collective memory and what that means, I mean, often what we commission says much more about the time that something's being commissioned than the subject that's being honored. So to me sort of as a historian, as an art historian, I look at the four continents and I do see how they really do reflect that period. And so then the goal is to sort of disentangle all of those threads and to put it in a perspective that balances the view that the artist presented in that same way. But allegories, of course, are really open to interpretation and French himself sort of left some vague elements to these same allegories. Whereas when you have a portrait statue, it's generally pretty clear who it's commemorating and why they're standing on that pedestal. Well, can you talk a little bit, so these statues are certainly very much part of the context of the original building of the customs house there. And it was a collaboration between the architect and the artist. And can you talk a little bit about that and the ways in which, you know, Cass Gilbert and Daniel Chester French, what were they intending to convey with these like this triumphalist propaganda? Well, that was exactly that. It was triumphalist propaganda. But as often as the case with public art, especially artists associated with the building, the architect in a lot of ways is in the driver's seat because, you know, the building is their artwork. And it's their conception. An architectural style form conveys a message. And so certainly the very grand Beaux-Arts style of the building is already making a very powerful statement. And so often then I think what I have seen in my experience is that the architects want something to be distilled even further into like a recognizable image where architecture is more an abstract language. And so they're looking for something that's in a sense more literal. And so, but the architect is the driving force here. I mean, I think the archival materials themselves show that, you know, Cass Gilbert envisioned for continents, allegorical sculptures. He created this grand stage for them, essentially. So I think that there's just by virtue of how he designed the building and how the opportunity that he's giving the artists sort of dictated the outcome. And certainly, you know, French brought his own life experience and his own worldview to this. That's not as if he's just expressing what Cass Gilbert is thinking. I mean, I think the two were very much on the same page about what the objectives were. And so you have these two, you know, individuals in their time, very much on the same page. But we are not in that time. And so the question then becomes about preservation, that how does historic preservation address its role in shaping these public spaces now that we are in a much more age? Yeah, I would say that the role of preservation really is our work is helping society manage change in ways that doesn't disconnect it from the legacy of our past. And that's complicated. I think the process means that we have to be inclusive. There has to be diverse representation in public process. And this idea of recontextualizing existing memorials in a way that brings forward truth. And even if that truth is rooted in racism, cultural inequity, the fact that there is no black or Latino representation in the American statue says a lot about where our nation was and the way that we valued black and brown communities at that time. And we are still dealing with the legacy of that inequity. And many ways think it's our job to leverage the power of place in these public spaces to have the most difficult conversations about race and use this as a moment, as Michelle said earlier, it's really an opportunity for education for truth telling or recontextualizing the meaning of American history. And Brent, I have a question from the audience that I'm going to direct to you to follow up on that. It says, question Confederate monuments are just history. Why should I be made to feel ashamed to appreciate the beauty of these statues? Yeah, good question. I would say that you are not, no one should not make you feel ashamed for appreciating the beauty. And the aesthetic value and the beauty of these statues is not really part of the conversation. The conversation is how they were used to weaponize and use to intimidate and to literally used as a tool for terrorism. I mean, could you imagine being a black American walking into a public space about to enter a courthouse and there stands a huge statue that represents everything that goes against your individual or community's collective values. That's the conversation that we are having today about Confederate monuments. It's not really about their aesthetic beauty. And so building on this question, then we've got, you know, given the scale and the prominence and the materiality and the siting of these public monuments, what measures can be taken to counterbalance the problematic symbolism and stature that these statues command? Michelle? Well, I gave some thought to this. I mean, it's really hard to respond to art or sculpture or something visual that occupies space with words. It's just not as effective. I mean, words just will never be as powerful. So I would say that, yes, you know, I'm certainly a very strong proponent about, you know, contextualizing and looking at things from many different angles and presenting diverse views to the public, not just this one curatorial voice, but this myriad of voices. But without really creating another artwork that truly has the same physical impact, I'm not so sure that there's this equal counterbalance. So I think we have to use our other tools. I think we have to use our virtual presentation. I mean, you know, the idea of, you know, for artists to reimagine what could be in those spaces in a virtual format. So that that could reach far more people in reality than if you put something in that physical space. But there are certain buildings, there are certain places in America that have such power because of the history that's occurred in those places. And sometimes art actually distills that essence from that place and sort of makes it visible. And other times it's obscuring it. You know, so I think this idea of counterbalance, it's not one for one. I think it's a it's using various tools and strategies to create a more equitable really presentation. And I was just going to add that as Michelle was talking, the quote from Picasso came to mind, which is art is the lie that helps us realize the truth. And if we can leverage technology, artificial intelligence, whatever the tools are to be able to tell the truth about the lie that is embedded within these materials, I think that would really be innovative for preservation, for historians to be able to confront the historical inaccuracies that we see in these artifacts. But I've been inspired by what's happening in Richmond, Virginia. Like I never would have imagined that Confederate monuments through artists, through community members reclaiming space, negative space in a way that has made me reimagine, rethink the harm that these statues or monuments calls on our present. And when communities come together and reclaim space, and they had an image of George Floyd on that statue. Wow. Or when they had a organic food garden there to make the connection between the historical inequities and the food deserts that exist in black communities. I think artists, historians, and others that come together can do some really cool reimagining work. Well, but how do we really build on that so it becomes an ethic that undergirds the work moving forward, rather than sort of performative, you know, movement that doesn't really change, that sort of masks the inability to change things underneath. If that makes sense in that order. Yeah. So I would say that. And I've thought a lot about this because with my work in preserving African historic places and, and championing the preservation of America's diverse history. I'm often thinking about how do we build a national ethic for this work and equitable interpretation. It's, it's, it's hard to find a one fit process and, and strategy that works for all contested monuments. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you there is no one fit. It's not one size fits all. I think that it's really important to think about the uniqueness of the artistic expression, whether it be a history painting or a sculpture its location. Who was the original patron and what that really says. What the critical reception was this object, what the reception was just by everyday people has there been a history of controversy associated with it, or was it praised and validated at, at, you know, the beginning when it was first installed in public space. I mean, I think, and every situation is really different. So I really do agree with you, Brent, that you have to look at each individual scenario, each individual community that's then there, and what the appropriate response should be. Well, and there is some, there's some movement and discussion that any sort of future monuments any sort of future iterations of public works shouldn't commemorate individual certain persons but rather ideas movements or themes. But how do we do that in a way that does, for example, exacerbate the the dearth of images of women in public spaces that are that are named women. So in these four statues we have these allegorical these women representing these allegorical ideas. But, you know, we've just seen over in Central Park that for the first time ever they have there are named individuals. Sojourner Truth, excuse me, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the supper jet Memorial that for the first time we're actually seeing the names of women being put on statues. So how do we balance out this idea of finding finding a space where we can commemorate ideas and people and places while also addressing some of these other absences in public spaces. Well, I think the four continents expresses values and ideals, and it really is representative of white America's values and ideals at that time. And as an exercise I think our nation should think about mapping white identity and power as it relates to this type of inequity. That for me would be powerful to identify all of the contested memorials that have overlooked the contributions of communities of color, including women. And I'm just going to give you a quick statistic. So in our National Register of Historic Places, 2% reflect African American history, less than 10% reflects America's diverse social and ethnic history, including women. I think it is time that public space that we tell a fuller story that we use this as a moment to highlight the contributions, the most amazing contributions of American women and all different types of sectors. And moments in time, that is a way that we empower our present and future generations. And I go back to this idea that public space is not meant to cause harm, to misinform, it is meant to educate and uplift. And so I would hope that more Americans would be uplifted when they are learning about and seeing women represented in public space. Michelle, do you want to comment on that? Well also just to add to that idea about public space, I mean it's really how people come together. So this idea of well what is that thing that really would bring people together, what's that catalyst? And so I think certainly the message that's broadcast from this monument or this statue or this major mural is, it's a message that has to really unite rather than divide. So I think that's really sort of the challenge obviously with public art because what we're seeing is great civic art that no longer communicates our civic ideals. And that's clearly over time the values that people really want to express in our public spaces has changed dramatically. But it also has to go to sort of who controls these spaces and what's happening in a given city or a state or in federal spaces. So I think we have to be mindful of who's the patron and how that has impacted what's transpired over time. For example, you know, when Central Park was first designed, they didn't want to have any statues there whatsoever. And then there were rules about what you could have some allegorical statues but they had to be near the entrance gates. But what you started seeing were all these various immigrant groups that came to New York that wanted to express their ethnic identity and honor their national heroes. And so you started having the public subscription process and so that then yielded certain results, which is very different than the process for the Custom House, which was paid for by the U.S. Treasury. And you know, and in that situation too, where the architect had such a to go back to that idea against such a controlling voice, versus how public art is commissioned today with through like say the percent for art mechanism, where you're gathering multiple voices you bring together the community art experts administrators to try to come up with the best solution for a given project. So I think one answer is thinking about how we generate these commissions and how they're actualized. And actually I'll throw one more idea in there, which is the more I've worked with permanent public art, the more I see the value of temporary public art. And so the idea of monuments and memorials, you know, are we ever going to agree on those things that we're going to revere forever? I mean, what does that even actually mean? And sometimes you can do much more sort of thought provoking statements if you make them temporary. So I just want to build on that. I agree with Michelle. I think temporary expressions of politics of contemporary cultural life. That is the way that we can fast track and work with many diverse artists and others to be able to tell a new story. But when you were talking, Michelle, it made me think of the mantra, the chant from the Black Lives Matter movement this summer, which is say her name, say his name. So it is critical that our nation begins to commemorate the black experience of black female experience so that we can say their names that have been omitted from the historical record. That a little black girl or brown girl can walk down the street and to see something that represents their potential and to read that name or to hear that name and to understand that their life matters. That I think has so much potential. And I'd love to see more American cities, Christine, actually follow in the footsteps of New York and scatter the American landscape with female representation and honor our historical figures that have contributed to who we are. Well said. Do you want to talk a little bit about the sort of getting into a hypothetical design exercise of what would these things look like? I know that you're working with the Nima Simone Childhood Home in North Carolina. So how would we begin to move in that direction in either the preservation spaces, the juxtaposition of the humble and the exalted for a contemporary audience? So I probably would frame this through the lens of contrasting intentional and unintentional monuments. So the Four Continents is an intentional monument that was meant to be preserved. It was designed by a celebrated sculptor, an upcoming architect designed to build a course. But in many ways sites like the home of Nina Simone that's in Triune, North Carolina. And do we have a can show the image of the house? This space is simple, unadorned, and at first glance doesn't seem to have a lot of history and meaning. But once you start to pull back those layers, you start to understand that a legend in jazz and in music. Was born inside of this humble vernacular architecture. This unintentional monument that was constructed as a family residence was never meant to be preserved in perpetuity. But today, yeah, but today we are have reimagined preservation to move beyond the architectural value and the aesthetic integrity values. And that we are elevating the significance of cultural heritage and cultural meaning. So places like Nina Simone's shouted home, that's a three room house. In my opinion, it is just as important as some of the iconic architectural marvels that we are talking about today. And Michelle, you have an article coming out about Teachable Monuments. How would how would this end with what you're trying to allow to help people teach and learn from these places in space? Sure, I think we maybe we have an image of it, but it's about two sculptures that used to be on cheek blocks in front of the east front to the capital. So they were the backdrop to inaugurations for over a century. In 1958, when the east front was pushed out and 35 about 35 feet, the sculptures were removed, partly because of the construction, but also partly because they were viewed as extremely offensive by people really for many decades. So these sculptures are now in storage. And, you know, I often get requests from scholars who want to see them because one is by Rachel Green, a very important American sculptor among that first generation of artists who studied in Italy. The other is by Luigi Persico, the discovery of Columbus. And what I've come to realize is that it's really important to let people sort of see them for what they are. And I'm interested in creating or making possible in a sense almost like a virtual exhibit about these sculptures because, yes, they do say something about our view of our history and how this country was founded. And these aren't necessarily, these are disquieting things. I mean, they should upset people and they are not easy to talk about. But by hiding the sculptures and saying, well, we don't have them anymore and they don't exist, I think we're compounding that problem. So my sort of proposal, and I am speaking really for myself, I'm not speaking for the architect of the Capitol or for Congress, is that we should use it as an opportunity to really address those difficult questions in our history. And say, well, these artists conceived these sculptures, these were commissioned by the government at a certain time, they no longer reflect our shared values. And what is it they tell us about where we were and then where we have come? So that's, you know, the argument that I make in this article, it's not to sweep them under the rug and hide them from public view, but let's use technology and share them at least in a virtual format. And so I have a question from the audience about contemporary practice in art conservation that allows for conservation to be reversed in the future. How would contextualizing these works for 2020 allow for a future reinterpretation? So if we do do, you know, short exhibits, very exhibits or any sort of reinterpretation, how, how would that have to be undoable? Well, I think one technique that's been used and certainly by contemporary artists like Christof Vigisco, if you're familiar with his work, this idea of projections of taking these grand walls and monuments and overlaying them with other images. So you're really combining a temporary art form with a permanent art form. So you're not materially changing the original at all. I don't, I'm certainly not advocating physically altering a sculpture in that way. What I'm suggesting is that there's a way to have a dialogue with it, either in sort of a virtual way or actually having art that's physical, that's there, that's in relation to say the custom house or those four continents, four continents, but not, not touching, I'm not, I'm not suggesting that we alter the original artwork. Yeah, and I did just get a note saying that we should remind people that there is no movement to remove the four continents, but that we are trying to encourage conversation around them, so that we can begin to understand them new ways, relative both to when they were, when they were first installed and as they exist today in this grand contested space out in front of the customs house. So there is no effort to remove them, but we are trying to encourage dialogue around them. So I just want to add that I agree that the removal or demolition don't even think that that should be part of the conversation. But so when we think of reconsexualization or the engagement of artists to tell a contrasting narrative and story, I could imagine like lights being displayed in color. What I've seen in my head and I kind of thought about the play Hamilton and how they have reimagined race in that play and in a really beautiful and creative way. How can that idea be applied to the four continents? I think whatever form that would look like or take, I think that would be really interesting. If we were able to convey the Native American and kind of change the color representation from say to a white person and the white person's faces, you know, a black person, Native Americans face. What kind of conversation would that say about the power that's being communicated within these statues? I mean, in all of that can happen in a virtual way very and it could be done in a very powerful manner and it could reach a huge audience. I agree. Yeah. I would be fascinating to see just in your description of it. I could go to that program. So I have a question here from the audience. Should we as a country have a monument park where anyone who wants to appreciate different pieces could come and see these beautiful works of art and anyone who does not want to see them cannot go there. I love this idea of creating a landscape of justice. And I've been thinking a lot about the Confederate monuments that will be relocated from public space. And as a preservationist, we don't support the erasure of history, even though it's complicated and difficult. So finding a landscape and space that can be programmed with accurate and truthful information that hopefully we can leverage the power contemporary preservation as a tool for healing and reconciliation and education. So to have that landscape where these monuments stand together in essence with their back turns of the nation with artists helping to recontextualize and program that space. I think that is an opportunity for the visitor that wants to experience that history to walk away empowered. And I think our nation has yet to fully reckon with race. And we understand as professionals, the power of place, the power of preservation and history, the power of art and architecture. And if all of that can be concentrated into one place with these contested histories and memorials, that could be really interesting, I think. Well, it's sort of the idea of creating a monument gallery, like a museum space or a gallery space. We tend to think of as these more neutral spaces, you know, that there's not a lot of... Well, sometimes museums do have a lot of history embedded there, but say a gallery space, you know, this idea of this white box, which is neutral and you're going to activate in all sorts of ways. And I think, you know, site matters where public art is really impacts how we perceive it, how we interpret it, the message that it communicates. So by taking these things that are so problematic, taking them out of the town square, taking them away from the courthouse, putting it in a space that has no other real purpose other than just to exhibit them, I think could certainly be a really interesting solution. And certainly that's happened, you know, in Europe, in various countries. I mean, certainly, you know, there are sort of these sculpture graveyards where monuments have been brought that, you know, where they're no longer the celebrated political figures of a particular regime. And so rather than being completely demolished, they're just gathered and presented sort of as a separate sculpture experience that, yes, a visitor could choose to see or not to see, which is very different than going down the street and being confronted with something that you don't want to see. Right. And as wonderful as a pedagogical space is, that would be to have a separate space where we could put all of these different monuments in conversation. There are still, it's sort of, I think it's an idealistic plan, but it doesn't remove the pedestals that exist in these spaces, that they're still in the public spaces, that they're still going to be, you know, from New England. I know that there's the memory of the thing that used to be there that still lingers. And so how, even if you take everything out of the public square, how do you then deal with the pedestals that remain and the conversations that start to happen around them? I think my view is, it's an opportunity to ask a question, what history deserves a prominence of that public space? And as you mentioned earlier, the need to recognize women in American history, the need to recognize that black history matters. I mean, if we create space, more space for telling the full American story, that seems like a perfect opportunity. And it's also an opportunity to bring the community together to find consensus about what history should be represented, that should represent that community's civic identity. You know, just brings to mind, you know, Trofago Square, what goes, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with the fourth plinth. And so you have this major site in the center of London, and you have a pedestal that has constantly changing sculptures on it. And I actually think it's an opportunity to sort of combine the temporary with the permanent and think about changing commissions and challenging artists and challenging communities to come up with those ideas, those concepts that are meaningful for them at that time. So I do see it as an opportunity to rebrand that space with the things that matter to the people who are there now. Yeah, I agree. And if I'm thinking about this in context to the four continents and the building that is rooted in American financial history. So we know that the legacies of slavery positioned our nation to construct such a beautiful architectural marvel, or to create these sculptures that presents a certain worldview about who we are, or who we were at that moment in time. And I wonder, how do we expand the gaps within the American business story? What about the African American contributions and business and what is, how does that look? How is that communicated as a memorial that, again, kind of supplements the invisibility of black financial contributions in American history? I think that would be powerful. How do we leverage these contested histories and monuments to begin to have the conversation that recognizes the roles of diverse Americans? I mean, I would just add to that that the four continents is this unique opportunity because it's almost so ironic that that's the very building that now houses the National Museum of the American Indian. And these are the sculptures fronting it. I mean, you know, it's sort of, it's a very interesting challenge and a very sort of obvious sort of intervention that's required. I mean, it's almost shouting like we must address this. But I think that it has been a great catalyst, you know, for not just this conversation, but I think in terms of this symbolic value that those sculptures have, I actually think that it's going to be very fruitful in the dialogue that's going to unfold. I think because they're so powerful as art, we cannot forget that. I mean, art that's really effective prompts reaction. And so I think Harold, you know, he mentioned that as well. I mean, I think the artistic success is still operating today, but in a different way. So if we do start to imagine a new space or these these statues in this space without repeating the past and being products of our time, how would we begin to reimagine what can happen there? And in other public spaces where we are looking at the at statues and memorials and and the and the hard conversations that need to happen around them. I would say that the national ethic that we discussed a little bit earlier, if if as preservationist as historians, if we are looking to shift national consciousness, that we are not just preserving a historical event or honoring that important person in history, but that this work really is social justice driven, that our goal in the end is to create more equity driven outcomes that our goal is to create healing and truth. Our goal is to create education and reconciliation. If that's the end goal that I think we have to bring together the smartest minds to develop a community driven public process that will bring a multi racial multi generational community together to reimagine their shared history and whether it is ephemeral, whether it's it's temporary, whether it comes in some other kind of form, we need as much public participation in that big vision and dream. And again, the tools that we're using is in the form of architecture and art and historic buildings and the material culture, but the real goal is something much more ambitious, I think. And if I just might add to sort of pick up on one of your points, the process here, just think about what you were saying. I mean the Custom House, the Treasury paid for it, I hired Cass Gilbert, he envisioned this vast architectural program on the exterior. And so it's a very narrow perspective and it was very much the architect's voice and one sculptor's voice versus a process that really would engage people in just the thought process about what's possible. I think will yield a very different product. I agree. And I actually see the history of the Customs House and the sculptures as a form of politics. And if we can remove the politics from the public process in this moment, I think that would be a win as well. I have another question here from the audience. When we talk about equity, maybe that means telling the additional stories not only of the economic power as represented by the Customs House, but the individuals who worked in the Customs House and the employees and all of the work that they do in the building both historically and contemporaneously, because there is the diversity of the people who have been in that space and have worked both to forward further the mission of it, but also to maintain and preserve and conserve that space. So how could we begin to also, in terms of there's the larger American history, but then also bringing out the stories of the people who have been in that space and the contradictions that they see in the corners of the building. I may be answering my own question here, but the contradictions that they see in the corners of the building in ways that sort of people who pass by it once or twice might not see. I love that question because that is exactly what equitable interpretation is about in this moment. It's about telling the story of the everyday experience. It's about bringing greater recognition to under-recognized communities. It's about telling the story of the builders, you know, imagining. I can only imagine that there were so many different immigrant communities that helped to build this grand piece of architecture and the sculptures. And so shining a national spotlight and interpreting their community's history, whether it is broadly as a community or as individuals, I think that will create a new roadmap for the way that we begin to interpret American history. Well, no, I agree with that. I mean, it's sort of, you know, at the U.S. capitals several years ago, and I think also Harold mentioned this as well, there was a monument that was installed to the enslaved labor that was so crucial in building the capital. And that, of course, is the unknown story or not the part that had been previously celebrated. And so I think it's a very, and when visitors come and they see that, I mean, it's almost like an epiphany, I think, for some people who didn't really consider how something was made or what was the economics behind it. So it's sort of, even though it's a small thing in the scale of the entire building complex, it's a very powerful reminder. And so there are ways of bringing out those sort of those, the unseen work and the reflecting the larger public that's in a space, whether they're the people working in the space or the people visiting the space. I mean, I'm not always sure what the best mechanism for doing that is. It's not always going to be a monument. It's not always going to be a plaque. But it's about intentionality. I would have to say that the GSA has done some really beautiful cutting edge work in the reinterpretation of history. And I heard them present a case study on a project where they identify the names of individuals connected to a military history site. And they told the story of African Americans and other diverse military individuals and just simple acts of saying someone's name, a simple act of recognizing and expanding the full history. That is a lot of power. And I think there is power when diverse citizens can tour public space and see themselves represented in it. And if we can find a way to do that, then that is preservation as social innovation and inclusion. And that is a wonderful place to stop. We've come to the end of our time. I want to thank you so much for your wonderful talk here tonight. We thank you so much. The link will be available on YouTube. And we thank you and good night. Good night. Thank you. Good night.