Trust for the National Mall

With “Pulling Together,” Beyond Granite Breaks New Ground

LocationWashington, District of Columbia, United States
Grantmaking areaPresidential Initiatives
AuthorRachel Clift
Video Matt Peters & Rachel Clift
DateDecember 8, 2023
The Washington Monument at sunset overlooking a group of blue sculptures sitting on the ground beneath it
“HOMEGOING” (2023) by Ashon T. Crawley, one of six art installations that comprised “Pulling Together,” a temporary exhibition on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Photo: Ike Edeani for Mellon Foundation

A first-of-its-kind exhibition on the National Mall offers a glimpse into the future of the American commemorative landscape.

In Washington DC, the National Mall stretches across two miles, home to a set of monuments and memorials that attract thirty-six million visits each year. People of all ages come from around the world to learn about and honor pivotal American leaders, fallen soldiers, and transformative moments in our national history. In our imaginations, these structures are timeless, and so are the stories they tell. 

But is America’s most iconic public square set in stone? Amid a landscape marked by statues of Presidents Lincoln and Jefferson, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which histories are missing from our complex past?  

What if the commemoration of the American story were up to you? 

These are the questions the team was asking at the Trust for the National Mall—a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service—when they invited Philadelphia-based nonprofit art studio Monument Lab to partner with them on a groundbreaking new exhibition. 

It would serve as the first public project for the Trust’s “Beyond Granite” initiative, a partnership with the National Capital Planning Commission and the National Park Service. And although artists have exhibited work on the National Mall before, it would also become the park’s first-ever curated outdoor exhibition.

Headshot of Teresa Durkin
Teresa Durkin
Executive Vice President, Trust for the National Mall

I feel like we’re at the beginning of a new evolution of how we’re going to be thinking about monuments of the future.

Aptly named Pulling Together, the exhibition required a bold vision and unique collaboration among multiple stakeholders including governmental agencies, local community members, and independent artists.

What stories remain untold on the National Mall? It was this prompt that led Monument Lab to select six artists for the exhibition, each of whom answered the question with largely interactive artworks that dotted the Mall’s near-700 acre landscape for a month, beginning on August 18, 2023.

Watch the video to discover the six monumental artworks and the stories they tell us about who we are, where we’ve been, and who we can become as a nation.

Pulling Together

In Monumental Art, Discover Untold Stories of America

Grant insight

Temporary Commemoration Pilot

Trust for the National Mall, based in Washington, D.C., was awarded $4,538,000 in September 2021 through Mellon’s Presidential Initiatives.

View grant details

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