Artist Commemorates Unrecognized Heroes With Temporary Monuments Projected Onto Trees

“Monuments” by Australian artist Craig Walsh is a powerful outdoor site-specific video installation that projects images of unrecognized local heroes onto trees, commemorating them into the local landscape. When the wind shifts, it adds beautiful movement to depicted faces.

Monuments aims to challenge traditional expectations of public monuments and the selective history represented in our civic spaces. Cleverly deconstructing its own definition by humanising the monument, there is a temporary fusion of everyday individuals with other living species occupying shared areas.

Walsh started this project in 1993 and has since taken it around the world, paying monumental tribute to those who would otherwise have the recognition.

Undermining the permanent historical and public art models so often controlled by subjective motivations, Monuments recognises the infinite contributions which influence our understanding of place. Monument installations are customized for each site through the selection of the portraitures celebrated.