Monument to the Vanquished Peasants

Description:

In his 1525 sketch Monument to the Vanquished Peasants, German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer presents a diagram for a column commemorating the sixteenth-century peasant revolts in western Europe. Depicting livestock, agriculture, and a peasant stabbed in the back, scholars have long debated whether Dürer’s drawing celebrates the triumph over the peasant class, or if it in fact honours their struggle.

Presented as part of Urgent Imagination: Art and Urban Development, Part 1,  Holly Ward reproduced Dürer’s monument on a black flag erected in an empty lot at 379 East Broadway Street, Vancouver. The site-specific installation also included an English translation of Dürer’s text Underweysung der Messung (Treatise on Measurement) (1525) that details instructions for erecting his speculative monument, alongside various root vegetables in four bushel baskets. Drawing parallels between contemporary issues of land use in Mount Pleasant and the conditions from which the medieval peasant revolts emerged, Ward’s monument points to a historical moment of collective resistance and its impact on the course of history.

Urgent Imagination: Art and Urban Development was a two-part project that proposed creative alternatives to developer-driven architecture and urban planning in Vancouver. The project generated events, artworks, conferences, and an online platform for critical inquiry into issues concerning urban development, spatial justice, and critical theory.

Curated by Caitlin Jones.