Monuments
In June 2025, the NJMML jury selected three Monument Installation Artists from a pool of applicants who responded to the project’s RFQ. These artists, introduced below, will collaborate with the project team throughout fall 2025 and winter 2026 to organize and lead three public events in each of the project’s three regions.
Follow their creative journey as they develop concepts, designs, and other key materials. These will be shared both at the public events and here on the website as the project unfolds.
EN ROOT offers a monumental vision and ambitious ecological agenda for War Memorial Park/Parque Oaxaca in New Brunswick. From its location at the triangle formed by the intersection of French Street and Jersey Avenue, En Root will consist of a large-scale sculptural gateway installation in vivid orange, welcoming the public into the park. En Root will include monarch-attracting pollinator gardens with native plantings, while also providing information and resources for immigrant workers.
Carriers of Light and Labor pays tribute to workers from across northern New Jersey, and makes visible their diverse stories and contributions. Through five separate structures that come together to form the installation, Ortiz’s monuments evoke Paterson’s industrial history, the textile-making traditions of immigrants drawn to the city as laborers, and the mills’ dependence on the Passaic River. The monuments will be installed in front of Paterson City Hall, on Market Street, in the very heart of the city.
Flagship asks us to consider what is revealed when a monument reflects and takes on the journeys that immigrant and migrant workers made across the dispersed geographies of South Jersey. Immanuel Oni’s Flagship - or “Sail Bus” as it is also called - will travel throughout the region, doubling as a mobile museum exhibiting and sharing oral histories, images, and other archival materials that explore how through work, migration, and community building, connections to place in South Jersey were forged.
