New Arts Justice is proud to present Will You Be My Monument: An Ode to Black Girlhood as part of the Four Corners Public Arts and Urban Agriculture Cooperative's free pilot community program, "Murals | Market | Music." This event will take place at Treat Place in Newark, NJ on Saturday, June 5th from 9 am - 4 pm.

New Arts Justice will activate the entire north end of Treat Place throughout the day. Will You Be My Monument: An Ode to Black Girlhood aims to address and redress the ways in which public monuments reproduce racial and gender violence as well as promote dialogue and activism, in real-time, around our history of colonization and slavery, and demands for racial justice and gender equality today.

Inspired by the mural Will You Be Monument, a collaboration between designer Chantal Fischzang and photographer Scheherazade Tillet, New Arts Justice at Express Newark hopes this activation will enhance contemporary conversations about the ongoing (in)visibility of Black girls and young women in the United States by providing various art interventions and conversations.

Register now for monument making with the Form Design Studio! Here you can get a 3D scan of yourself and our team will 3D print it as a mini-monument. We will be hosting a portrait session of Black girls in Newark with Scheherazade Tillet and there will be a performance by the Floyd Little Double Dutch Team.

At 1 pm there will be a conversation on Black girlhood, art, and community healing with Salamishah Tillet and Jasmine Mans, moderated by fayemi shakur. First we will have a short reading of, Black Girl, Call Home by poet Jasmine Mans and In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of Alice Walker’s Masterpiece by writer Salamishah Tillet. Following the reading and talk, there will also be a book sale and signing hosted by the Source of Knowledge Bookstore.