The Battle Is Joined

“I think a monument is a living, breathing entity that commemorates, acknowledges, reconsiders, reimagines, and investigates the past, and its implications for the future and the now,” says artist Karyn Olivier. For Monument Lab, she created The Battle Is Joined, a monument that revealed through the act of concealing, using mirrored surfaces that asked visitors to interact with multiplicity, simultaneity, and a lack of resolution.

Vernon Park is the site of two monuments, the Battle of Germantown Memorial and Pastorius Monument, commemorating, respectively, the liberation of the American colonies from British rule and the attempted liberation of slaves led by Germantown founder Francis Daniel Pastorius. The Pastorius Monument has been boxed in several times because of concern over whether the imagery was truly American, and Olivier referenced this history with The Battle Is Joined, boxing in the Battle of Germantown Memorial with a mirrored structure that echoed the sculpture underneath. Instead of fading into the background, as the sites we pass every day often do, this temporary monument reflected the ever-shifting neighborhood—allowing people to see themselves and their humanity in its surface, making the marble beneath more alive and physical than ever, a constant reconsideration, an answer to the question of what a “true” America looks like.

Collaborators: Adam Franklin, TIm Rusterholz of RustFab, Ian Schmidt, and Mat Speedy.

Major support for Monument Lab projects staged in Philadelphia’s five squares provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. An expanded artist roster and projects at additional neighborhood sites made possible by the William Penn Foundation. Lead corporate support provided by Bank of America. Generous additional support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Location Note: Work is no longer on view at this location.