Stone Stories
Location
United States Pavilion, 16th International Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy
On View
May 26, 2018 – November 25, 2018
Tags
Created for the US Pavilion’s 2018 exhibition, Dimensions of Citizenship, Stone Stories investigates citizenship at the scale of Civitas. Building on Studio Gang’s ongoing work in Memphis, Tennessee, the project shows how redesigning cities’ public spaces—including those with complex histories—can be an inclusive process that empowers communities and gives rise to greater belonging.
Located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, Memphis and its citizens made a strong statement about belonging in 2017 when the city removed two Confederate monuments from public parks. Inspired by this exercise of community power, Stone Stories explores how one overlooked yet important civic site—Memphis Landing, a cobblestone river landing that dates from the nineteenth century—might become a very different kind of monument: an inclusive, horizontal site of public memory that elevates the stories, values, and aspirations of all Memphians.
Stone Stories transports hundreds of the Landing’s cobblestones to the US Pavilion and transforms them into a dramatic platform that connects Biennale visitors with Memphis’ past and present. Along with an original video, nine interpretively transfigured cobblestones, and a hand-drawn map, the project reveals the dynamic people and natural forces that shape the city and advocates for an equitable future.
The cobblestones will return to Memphis following the Biennale’s end. Carrying new meaning and awareness, and with new civic potential unlocked, they will be ready to help Memphians craft the next phase in the life of their city.
As Memphis’ historic “front door” and commercial hub, Memphis Landing served the city’s early economy, whose cornerstone was cotton, which relied on slavery. Forever linked to this legacy, and continually affected by the waters of the Mississippi, the 8-acre Landing has remained underused for nearly a century despite its location adjacent to downtown.
To find out what citizenship looks like in Memphis today, the Studio Gang team interviewed nine exemplary Memphis citizens, each of whom has a unique approach to making change in their city. Their insights are shared in a video that is on view in the US Pavilion and online.
To find out what citizenship looks like in Memphis today, the Studio Gang team interviewed nine exemplary Memphis citizens, each of whom has a unique approach to making change in their city. Their insights are shared in a video that is on view in the US Pavilion and online.
Analog and digital techniques were used to transfigure nine Memphis cobblestones into striking objects that reveal the stones’ previously hidden properties. These “story stones” simultaneously express the unique qualities of individual conversations and ideas while providing a range of material techniques that could be used to mark cobblestones at Memphis Landing.
Project Advisors and Collaborators
Bill Baker, Kevin Chang, and Dave Horos, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Carol Coletta, The Kresge Foundation
Benny Lendermon, Riverfront Development Corporation
International Masonry Institute
Pawel Nawrocki, Carving in Stone, Inc
Quarra Stone
Eric Robertson, Community LIFT
Spirit of Space
Sponsor
The Kresge Foundation
Related
Los Angeles Times — "Goodbye, Guy on a Horse. A New Wave of Monument Design Is Changing How We Honor History"
The Los Angeles Times includes Studio Gang’s 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale installation Stone Stories in a commentary on the evolution of civic monuments.
Architects Newspaper — "U.S. Pavilion from Venice Biennale announces upcoming debut in Chicago"
Stone Stories to open February 15 at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago.
New York Times — “Creators of Architectural Exhibits Reach to the Cosmos for Inspiration”
Studio Gang’s Stone Stories installation is profiled along with the six other projects that make up Dimensions of Citizenship, this year’s US Pavilion exhibition at the 16th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
