The exhibition Monumental Perspectives, curated by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), reimagines monuments—what they are and who they honor—using augmented reality. The show displays work from five artists, each of whom was prompted to redefine the meaning of monuments through augmented reality, an interactive technology that overlays digital imagery on top of the physical world.

Set in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, the exhibition pays tribute to the surrounding community’s workers and serves as “an otherworldly portal between past, present and future worlds, exploring the continuing presence of an indigenous people native to L.A.” One of the works, Vendedores Presente by artist Ruben Ochoa [pictured above], uses magical realism to pay homage to working-class immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Monumental Perspectives is in part a response to the social justice uprisings of 2020 when many monuments were removed. These events raised questions such as Why do monuments exist? and Whom or What do they honor? LACMA’s director, Michael Govan, points out that monuments themselves augment our reality by changing our perspective of place or by causing us to remember past events. The digitization of monuments allows them to span across temporality.