Monument Avenue: General Demotion/General Devotion Young Designers

Monument Avenue: General Demotion/General Devotion Young Designers is a design ideas competition run by the Storefront for Community Design + the mObstudiO that invites youth from around the country to create proposals for the next monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

Recent discussion and debate have called into question the role of monuments and statuary in the public realm. For what people or causes should we create statues? Given our diverse society, who or what can we agree to celebrate and how should we celebrate them? What are the values and/or beliefs that we as a community or a country hold in common? Are statues an outdated mode of public recognition and if so what is the appropriate way to celebrate our heroines, our heroes, our common ground?

The intent of the competition is to generate constructive dialogue about the difficult and divisive issues embedded in our history. Monument Avenue: General Demotion General Devotion Young Designers solicits student (K-12) proposals that identify the subject and create the design for the next monument. Students from around the country are eligible to submit. Each entrant will submit a 24″ x 36″ exhibition panel that will include drawings and photographs of models that express the student’s design intent.

Students will submit their panels to a designated representative within their school. This designated person will organize a selection process within their school, forwarding one entry/school for exhibition and judging in Richmond. A jury of nationally recognized artists and designers will select winners and award prizes. The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design in Richmond, Virginia, will exhibit the entries.