FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 4, 2021. The League of Women Voters of Litchfield County announced today that it will partner with the Litchfield Historical Society to offer a ZOOM talk called "Hidden in Plain Sight: Decoding Public Monuments" on February 21st   at 3:00 PM. Please sign up to join at registration [at] LitchfieldHistoricalSociety.org and the link will be sent to you.

Our speaker will be David Anthone, the Supervisory Historic Preservation Officer of the General Services Administration. Anthone's government role is within historic preservation and public art, while his art practice focuses on painting, conceptual work and ready-mades, at his studio in Roxbury, CT. 

One of Anthone’s recent projects was "Stonewall Jackson: REMIX" (2020) DARN studio. A great deal of attention has been placed recently on public monuments, which Anthone believes “not only command attention to themselves, but they also hold court within the public spaces that they occupy.”  The historic confederate monuments that comprise monument row in Richmond VA became the lightning rods for discussions, debate, and protests, regarding systemic racism, our historical narrative, and the role of commemorative markers in public spaces.

Anthone will address the debate this past year about public monuments and how they stimulate our feelings about our historical narrative. He will explore what story is being told through monuments, who is telling the story, and what was the original intent of the monument and their impact to current communities.

The League of Women Voters of Litchfield County is a grassroots, nonpartisan political organization of women and men.