What We Do When Our Icons Tumble Or Crumble: A Field Guide

“For as long as humans have lived with symbols we have created strategies for effacing or revaluing them. Destruction is the most dramatic. But statues can also be reinstalled in less symbolically fraught places … Forgetting is a powerful force, as well … Iconoclasm can be accidental or purposeful, an act of liberation or oppression, and there’s never any guarantee that it will work.”