Welcome to Monuments

More than an app, Monuments AR is an insurgent architecture, a counter-infrastructure in the contestation over public memory. Developed by Farhan Khalid and Mikala Hyldig Dal, this non-profit, independent platform reprograms the ideological landscape of urban space through augmented reality (AR). Initially premiered at the 12th Berlin Biennale, Monuments AR functions as an interface for collective artistic interventions—reconfiguring sites of contested histories into spaces of inquiry, resistance, and possibility.

This is not monumentality in its traditional, authoritarian sense—no stone, no bronze, no singular author. Instead, Monuments AR operates as a porous, fluid system: an overlay, a digital palimpsest where layers of erased, silenced, or forgotten histories can be rewritten. It hosts site-specific interventions that subvert dominant narratives, exposing the fractures within public memory culture and carving out speculative futures. What happens when the monumental shifts from mass to transmission, from physical endurance to real-time counter-history? Who controls remembrance when memory is no longer bound to material permanence but exists in a state of continuous recalibration?

By occupying digital space, Monuments AR reclaims visibility in a realm increasingly colonized by corporate surveillance and state control. Yet, it resists the extractive logic of Big Tech—there are no data mines here, no user profiling, no surveillance disguised as convenience. The app is built with a strict commitment to privacy, ensuring a secure and data-respecting experience. In an era where both urban and digital public spaces are increasingly privatized, Monuments AR remains an open framework for collective authorship, democratic activism, and the radical reimagination of memory itself.

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Projects

Alternative Monument for Germany

ADfD proposes a counter-narrative to Germany’s toxic migration discourse by reclaiming public memory culture as a site for inclusion, resistance, and collective imagination. In direct opposition to right-wing populist rhetoric, such as that of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), ADfD offers an alternative: a vision of migration as a force that weaves spaces and histories into an evolving, collective fabric. Through a queer-feminist lens—foregrounding voices long silenced in the public sphere—the project explores the transformative potential of migration to reframe urban spaces and communal memory.

Central to this inquiry are pressing questions: What forms might a monument to migration take? How can migration memories be shared, preserved, and made visible? What role can collective processes and emerging digital formats play in expanding public remembrance culture?

In response, ADfD embarks on a community-driven search for traces of migration memory, developing a new kind of monument that merges digital and urban space. Anchored in citizens’ meetings at the Spore Initiative in Neukölln and beyond, this participatory process creates opportunities for shared storytelling and collaborative visualizations. Through a series of audio-visual artistic interventions, the project connects testimonies, migration histories, and subjective experiences into poetic and subversive representations of our shared urban landscape.

As part of the AR-based (Augmented Reality) monument’s creation, renowned cultural workers engage the public through lectures, discussions, artistic workshops, and performances—shaping a monument that does not merely commemorate but actively envisions new, inclusive spaces of memory.

The project has been presented e.g. at the Spore Initiative, Berlin Art Week at Gropius Bau, and is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
www.adfd.info

Past Statements – Present Futures at Haus Der Kunst, Munich

On 7 and 8 October 2022 Haus der Kunst, in collaboration with the City Department of Arts and Culture of the City of Munich and Freispiel Kulturagentur, will host a multi-day forum entitled “Past Statements – Present Futures“. The panels are convened by Cana Bilir-Meier & Saboura Naqshband, Romi Crawford and Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard as well as Emma Enderby, Damian Lentini and Andrea Lissoni (Haus der Kunst). For more details visit the official Forum Page

Monuments will be present at the forum, with the inauguration of our newest sculpture.

12th Berlin Biennale Sculptures

The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art takes place every two years at varying locations in Berlin and is defined by the differing concepts of its renowned curators. We are proud to be present at the 12th Berline Biennale with the Monuments apps for iOS and Android, including two special artworks ‘Monument #1 BERLIN CONFERENCE’ and ‘Monument #2 STASI HEADQUARTERS’.

Please click here for more information

Utopian Tours

In Utopian Tours, augmented reality sculptures function as “Monuments of the Future”, and are interwoven in an alternative narration of Berlin, performed live by Mikala Hyldig Dal. The tour presents a radically optimistic futuristic perspective on the development of sustainable social structures in an urban context. Here urban space takes place as an expanded social sculpture; with humour and belief in the political potential of imagination, Utopian Tours aims to make the Freiräume, the utopian free spaces we dream of, experienceable in the present. In a city endangered by gentrification, artistic tourists are connected with urban activists in a sci-fi journey through Berlin, Kreuzberg. Invited artists and activists have created interventions in public space along the path of the guided tour. Multi-media installation, talks and performances at Galerie Alpha Nova Find out more…

Impressions from Utopian Tours, Berlin 2019

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