The newest monument to Black history in Los Angeles is small enough to fit in your pocket. Rather than a physical structure, the monument is projected onto the landscape through the viewer’s phone using augmented reality (AR) technology. Created by artist Ada Pinkston, the work celebrates the life of Biddy Mason, a formerly enslaved woman who helped build modern Los Angeles through her philanthropy and entrepreneurship.
The Biddy Mason AR installation is one of several initiatives to transform California’s commemorative landscape. Often called the “city of the future,” Los Angeles is investing heavily in its past. Those efforts — cooperative ventures between a responsive local government and community leaders — offer a blueprint for other cities and states to follow as they, too, confront their troubled histories. A clear-eyed view of the past is just the first step, although it’s essential. The next step involves recreating memorial landscapes, a task that has just begun.
California hasn’t been at the center of debates over monuments. Former Confederate states — where statues of rebels and generals dominate the memorial landscape — rightly have been the focus. Yet California’s past also was shaped by slavery. And for nearly a century, its monuments and memorials reflected the Lost Cause ideology associated with the Confederacy.
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