002: Can Placemaking Be an Act of Resistance?

The Places That Dis/appear: On Spaces of Loss, Memory, and Rebellion

Photo by Jonas Verstuyft on Unsplash

“Monuments are not just to remember the past, but to contest it, to speak to the present, and to shape the future.” Mabel O. Wilson — Begin with the Past¹

Recently, I asked ChatGPT this question:

“How are you defining place versus space?”

Its response:

Defining space as something open, undefined, and full of possibilities triggered a visceral response in my body. As you’ll see, I had time this day…

So, for me, the simple answer to the question ‘Can placemaking be an act of resistance?’ is yes.

I will begin with a simple truth: every space holds within it the potential to narrate stories of presence and absence, of erasure and defiance. Place and space cannot be neutral. In neighborhoods marked by histories of displacement and neglect, to craft a place—a park, a mural, a community center—is to etch a claim upon the world. This act is both deliberate and deeply personal; an assertion that we were here, we matter, and our stories will not be forgotten.

I often find myself asking friends the same question—Is that little [restaurant, vintage shop, record store, bodega, park, you name it] on the corner of [city, street, block intersection] still there? The answer rarely matters. In my memory, it lasts forever, along with the experiences we shared there as friends, lovers, or even strangers.

To demonstrate placemaking as an act of resistance, we must first recognize that place is not merely a backdrop to human experience but a participant in shaping it. When we create place—through art, architecture, memory, or ritual—we are engaging in a deliberate act of authorship over our surroundings. We tell our surroundings what is needed, what should exist. This is not merely a value proposition, but an active announcement to community, saying: I see what they took from us, what they haven’t given us, and I have found means to provide it—to return it to where it belongs. Here is its home–once again.

This act of authorship, when wielded by those whose stories are often erased, is resistance in its most tangible form.

Michelle Browder's Mothers of Gynecology monument in Montgomery Stephen Zucker via Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0

In the spring of 2023 I had the honor of touring three cities in Alabama with an amazing group of reparative capital practitioners, artists, capital movers, and dreamers. One of the most impactful experiences I had there, and likely of my lifetime, was visiting the Mothers of Gynecology Monument. I must admit, I had no clue what I was in for.

In Montgomery, Alabama, the statue of Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy stands not only as a memorial but as an act of resistance itself. These three enslaved Black women were subjected to repeated experimental surgeries by Dr. J. Marion Sims who has, sadly, been touted as an American leader in women’s health. His surgeries were often performed without anesthesia with these women's bodies exploited under the guise of medical advancement. The artist Michelle Browder, recognizing the erasure and dehumanization embedded in Sims' legacy, created The Mothers of Gynecology Monument as a reclamation of narrative and space. Browder’s work transforms space into place, public memory and contested spaces into sites of dignity—foregrounding Black women’s humanity. Securing the land for the monument involved years of advocacy and community engagement, underscoring how placemaking here is inseparable from resistance and repair (NPR, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine). The monument invites reflection not only on the violent history of gynecology but on how physical spaces can become vessels for truth-telling, communal healing and unfolded histories. Spaces can be transformed through artistic and literary practice.²

In cities where gentrification spreads like ivy, swallowing blocks whole, the act of placemaking becomes a reclamation of history. When a mural representing local heroes appears on a wall, when a community garden flourishes where a parking lot was planned, when the name of a street is restored to its indigenous roots—these are not just aesthetic choices but political statements in action. They declare: We were here. We are here. We will continue to be here.

Photo by Dan Mall on Unsplash

The power of placemaking as resistance lies here. It does not always manifest as protest or direct confrontation. Instead, it works like water, reshaping landscapes over time. It turns the mundane into sacred ground, transforms everyday acts into rituals, and repositions the margins as the center. This is the very essence of resistance: to disrupt the dominant story and to assert that the marginal, the overlooked, and the erased are central to our collective identity.

Consider Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. The words painted boldly on the street were more than an assertion of rights; they turned a public thoroughfare into a stage for memory and a site of mourning and joy to be witnessed as far north as the distance possible for satellite photo capture. (Shoutout Mayor Muriel Bowser!) For as long as the paint remained—and even now, as an echo—it served as a reminder that place can hold both grief and hope in equal measure. That place can act as resistance.

But resistance through placemaking is not just about marking territory because we know place is never only about location.³ It’s also about creating spaces of possibility. It invites communities to imagine futures not yet realized and to practice new ways of being together. Pop-up exhibitions, block parties, community altars—each act transforms space into a canvas for collective dreaming and authorship.

This is where placemaking circles back to itself. What begins as a response to erasure becomes a platform for new creation. Gardens planted in resistance to food deserts become a gathering place for knowledge exchange. The traffic sign adorned in response to violence becomes a touchstone for healing. The neighborhood reclaimed through collective action becomes a model for other communities.

And so, we find ourselves back at the beginning. Can placemaking be an act of resistance? Yes. Not only can it be, but it often must be. We recognize that the act of placemaking is indeed circular: it honors what has been, engages with what is, and envisions what can be. Each creation of space is a reaffirmation of identity and a quiet yet powerful protest against a world that often seeks to silence us. Placemaking, in its most resilient form, is not just an artistic or architectural pursuit—it is a profound act of resistance, a testament to our refusal to vanish, and a continuous cycle of remembrance and reinvention.

For those of us whose histories have been buried, whose voices have been silenced, and whose bodies have been displaced, placemaking is a method of carving out visibility, of asserting truth against revisionist histories, and of building futures where presence is no longer questioned.

I think about this often as I walk through my own neighborhood. Who even named this place? My eyes are drawn to every sign and every patch of green overtaking concrete. I imagine what could be—how a vacant lot might become a garden, how a convenience store should be an art gallery, how an empty wall could tell a story with art, how a forgotten corner might offer refuge. I realize that, in my own way, I am always placemaking. Always looking for proof that I belong. Always swerving those who might imagine I don’t belong. Always seeking ways to make the world feel a little more like home. How are you resisting through placemaking?

1. Wilson, Mabel O. Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2016.

2. hooks, bell. Belonging: A Culture of Place. New York: Routledge, 2009.

3. Reese, Ashanté M. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019.