Inclusive Monuments in a Founding Landscape: Public Art, Interpretation, and the Afterlives of Declaration House

This presentation examines Declaration House, a 2024 public art and history exhibition presented by Monument Lab at Declaration House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Located within Independence National Historical Park, the site marks the spot where Thomas Jefferson drafted the United States Declaration of Independence, with his enslaved servant, Robert Hemings, present. The exhibition sought to reframe this foundational location and national narrative by centering Hemmings’ presence—and that of his descendants.

The project premiered Sonya Clark’s installation The Descendants of Monticello, a monumental montage of blinking eyes projected onto the historic façade. The work features descendants of the more than 400 people enslaved at Monticello, including individuals biologically related to Jefferson, creating a powerful visual intervention that foregrounds the entangled histories of freedom and enslavement embedded in the nation’s founding narrative. In addition to the installation, Monument Lab facilitated participatory programs and a visitor “Welcome Station,” where the public was invited to respond through drawings and reflections, planned to inform interpretation at the park in advance of the United States Semiquincentennial in 2026. Those plans are likely in jeopardy.

Situating this project within debates about representation and redress in heritage spaces, the paper analyzes how Monument Lab’s work, alongside its educational initiative, the School of Monument Making, positions monument-making as a civic practice that cultivates connection, belonging, and kinship through collaborative interpretation. At the same time, the project raises critical questions about the durability and institutional support of such interventions. What has changed at Declaration House and within Philadelphia’s public history landscape since the exhibition’s debut in 2024? Have the participatory responses gathered from visitors meaningfully shaped interpretation as the Semiquincentennial approaches? How do these efforts intersect with recent controversies over the removal or reinterpretation of historical exhibits during the administration of Donald Trump? And more broadly, can participatory monument-making sustain its critical force once incorporated into official commemorative frameworks in the city most closely associated with the country’s founding?

By examining Declaration House as both artwork and interpretive experiment, this paper explores how public art can challenge historical omissions while revealing the tensions inherent in efforts to build more inclusive narratives of national memory, especially timely in the Semiquincentennial year.