The After Monument started as an assignment during my first year at Design Academy Eindhoven to create a website and was subsequently turned into an event during Dutch Design Week on our own initative. The project shares seventeen individual stories of controversial monuments, constructed by each person in our class. I chose the Valley of the Fallen, a memorial and monument that was constructed to pay tribute to those that passed away during the Spanish Civil War. I contributed to coding the website and gave a presentation about the Valley of the Fallen at DDW.

Since June 2020 the removal of monuments has felt like a global phenomenon. Monuments seem to be falling like dominoes from one nation to the next creating a roaring echo. However, this global media debate often obscures the unique emotional narratives of each monument for their local communities. Bridging this gap is a key challenge of understanding monuments. My class collectively used our tools and perspective as information designers to illuminate these individual complex narratives and their connection to the continuing international debate.