Commemorating

Archetypal memorials of historically questionable high-status males that continue to haunt contemporary cities have increasingly come under scrutiny. This chapter explores how these older forms are being decentred by diverse commemorative practices. The discussion commences by exploring the move towards abstraction by investigating the form and meanings of particular war memorials. Secondly, I explore the coming into material representation of subaltern and oppositional characters, events and groups, particularly focusing on Manchester's commemorative landscape. Thirdly, I consider the emergence of diverse vernacular commemorative cultural practices, and those that honour figures from popular culture. Fourthly, I investigate counter-memorials that contest the sentiments and ideologies of earlier figural forms. Fifthly, I examine anti-memorials that critically interrogate desires to fix meaning and memory in space. I conclude by focusing upon Australian Aboriginal commemorative objects situated in landscapes forged by non-human agencies that depart from hylomorphic practices of memorialisation.