In her recent Letters from an American (7 June 2025), Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson notes that the “Trump administration claims to be deeply concerned about American history. In March, Trump issued an executive order calling for “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” It complained, as Trump did in his first term, that there has been “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
In that spirit, the Trump administration is now pursuing a $34 million “National Garden of American Heroes”, a sculpture park of 250 new monuments to be completed by 4 July 2026. But as Politico reports (31/05/25), artists and curators have raised serious concerns: the project forbids abstraction and modernism, prioritising realism and nationalistic messaging over artistic or historical depth.
Illustration by Jade Cuevas/POLITICO (source images via AP and iStock)
It’s a timely reminder of how history, and the art that interprets it, has for millennia, been shaped and reshaped by those in power.
Throughout history, those holding power have used monuments to shape their legacy. Nero’s Collossus, a 30-metre bronze statue of himself, later renamed and repurposed by other emperors, is an early example of political storytelling.
Jumping to Perth, we’ve seen a similar, smaller scale dynamic. Under the leadership of former Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas, the City of Perth quietly removed the Ore Obelisk, a 50-year-old civic artwork commemorating Western Australia’s population reaching a million and the states unique geology and optimism and ambition during the mineral boom. Last year, the City bypassed its own public art policy to approve a new acquisition: a mass-produced sculpture with a tenuous link to a minor anecdote in local history, tied to a tourism branding campaign championed by the same former mayor. The curatorial and governance safeguards meant to uphold public value were set aside.
Across contexts, the pattern is clear: when public artworks are used to reinforce singular narratives, without transparency, consultation, or cultural rigour, distortion follows.
More recently, it’s interesting to note that former City of Perth Deputy Lord Mayor and founder of Perth Design Week, Sandy Anghie was so concerned about the gender imbalance in the city’s public art collection that she and her husband, Michael Anghie, personally funded a new memorial to Western Australia’s first female parliamentarian, Edith Cowan. Created by Joan Walsh Smith and Charlie Smith, it is now the first statue of a woman on St George’s Terrace.
Sandy Anghie, left, helps unveil the statue of Edith Cowan on Thursday afternoon. Credit: Holly Thompson
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, it is not government but Lendlease, a commercial developer, who has commissioned Badjgama Ngunda Whuliwulawala (Black Women Rising), a striking new artwork led by Alison Page, an award-winning First Nations creative, and developed in conversation with curatorial and cultural advisor Rhoda Roberts AO and the newly formed Sydney Coastal Aboriginal Women’s Group. It honours First Nations women’s leadership and resilience, powerfully contemporary, community-driven, and culturally grounded.
These examples point to a broader shift: a growing public appetite for meaningful, community-led memorials that reflect shared values. Where traditional monuments often reinforced singular narratives from the top down (white, male, monied), we’re seeing an emergence of new work grounded in participation, inclusion, and care. It suggests not the end of civic commemoration, but a redressing and reinvention.
#PublicArt #HistoryMatters #CulturalPolicy #SaveTheKebab #CuratorialStandards #CivicLeadership #EdithCowan #BlackWomenRising #HeatherCoxRichardson
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/june-7-2025?r=3pwqqd&utm_medium=ios
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History – The White House