Javier Cardona Otero, a doctoral student in Art Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Program, will bring local high school students and Bloomington citizens together this spring with a multi-cultural performing arts project.

Called Monumental Move, the project engage ten students from the Academy of Science & Entrepreneurship in the creation of an original theater piece to be shared with diverse audiences in various indoor and outdoor sites throughout Bloomington in late April 2018. These students will use physical theater and visual art, among other art forms to create “living statues.” The collection of living statues created and curated in this project will be an embodied testament of young people’s voices on how they see the world and how they are positioned within it.

But unlike traditional live statue art, the statues in Monumental Move will not be silent. These original and youthful statues will speak out and share their informed understandings of their worlds to audiences in select communal spaces throughout the city.

“The diverse events that continue to shape and reshape actions related to the removal or permanence of confederate monuments around the country have prompted me to intervene creatively,” Cardona Otero said. “Monumental Move will intertwine the arts and critical education to engage young minds and bodies into active and public practices for democratic citizenship.”

Monumental Move will be funded through a 2018 Indiana University Bloomington Public Art Grant.