Columbus, Ohio, Is Transcending the Confines of Its Namesake

A 20 foot, 3.5-ton bronze statue of Christopher Columbus has been towering over visitors to Columbus, Ohio’s city hall since 1955. It was sculpted by Edoardo Alfieri and gifted by Columbus’s sister city of Genoa, Italy, which was also Columbus’s likely birthplace. It was in June of 2020 when Columbus mayor Andrew J. Ginther took a proactive measure and placed the statue into storage—affirming the notion that the community has a vested stake in the city’s public artwork and should be the one to evaluate the statue’s future status. 

With the temporary removal of the Columbus statue, a unique opportunity emerged for the City of Columbus to collectively reimagine how monuments and public artwork can convey its history and identity–despite its unchanging name. 

“The (advisory) committee sees an opportunity to re-cast the statue, not as a symbol of community beliefs, but as an artifact of our city’s history,” shared Jennifer Fening, Deputy Director of the Department of Development, with the Columbus Dispatch in 2022. “They see an opportunity to return the statue to the community in a new site, surrounded by new contextual information that can create a place of reflection, education, and community healing.” 

In 2023, with the support of Mellon’s Monuments Project Presidential Initiative, the Reimagining Columbus initiative is gaining momentum. A diverse team of experts, along with committee members consisting of citywide leaders and residents, is in the process of collecting feedback through community conversations that integrate conventional and restorative practices. The initiative will also delve into colonial and contemporary history, and identify emerging practices in placemaking to reach an informed decision on the statue. 

While ultimate decisions regarding the Columbus statue rest on the outcome of the community engagement process, the implications extend far beyond this specific public artwork. The community engagement process will be documented with detailed videos, photos, and white papers. And the insights gained from this generative, knowledge-building initiative are expected to be distributed more widely by 2025, thereby offering a standardized model for community engagement and helping establish a precedent for other cities grappling with similar challenges.