Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 45

Remember Me
Sorcha Carey
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from the introduction to the catalogue for the 2016 Edinburgh
Art Festival, UK’s largest celebration of visual art. The essay references art installations at the
2016 Art Festival. The author is the Director of the Edinburgh Art Festival and author of Pliny’s
Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History.
Remember Me
Our cities are filled with monuments: the material evidence of a profoundly
human urge to memorialise, as well as a constantly evolving archive of who
and what has mattered to previous generations.
The word has its origins in the Latin verb monere, meaning ‘to remind,
warn, advise’; from the first, carving out a proactive instructional role for
monuments. Though if two recent encounters are anything to go by, it
seems that increasingly, monuments are losing their inherent authority. A
small sign spotted on a recent visit to Naples made the following entreaty:
Cittadini. Rispettare i suoi monumenti (‘Citizens! Respect your monuments!’).
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Image courtesy of the Edinburgh Art Festival