A Trayvon Martin monument featuring the slain man’s ubiquitous hoodie has been installed by a so-called guerrilla artist named Matthew Hincman… and he installed it secretly without the permission from local government officials in Boston. But if that’s not enough, Hincman also created the monument in order to make the politically loaded connection to a Civil War monument that is located very close across the street.
In a related report by The Inquisitr , George Zimmerman’s lawsuit claims NBC employees purposefully edited the audio recordings of him talking to the 911 dispatcher in order to make it sound like the Hispanic man was racially profiling Trayvon.
Hincman is an associate professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and he created his Trayvon Martin monument by attaching a small statue to a lamp post. The top of the monument features a hoodie discarded to the ground which is similar to the one wore by Trayvon during the fatal confrontation with Zimmerman. On the side of the Hincman wrote his name along with the mysterious message, “Still, 2014.”
According to Hincman, this message on his Trayvon Monument monument is intended to reference the Civil War monument, which is dedicated to 24 West Roxbury men who died during the war, although the artist is giving it a new meaning:
“By pairing Martin’s death with the Civil War monument, Hincman aimed to make ‘a contemporary marker to how far we’ve come in terms of race relations, in terms of power and equality since the end of slavery, since the end of the Civil War.’… [It’s] about ‘all the young people out there with a hoodie talking on a cellphone to a friend. Because that’s what teenagers do.’”
The reason why Hincman did not seek approval for his Trayvon Martin monument was because he “remains skeptical of the city’s public art approval process” and believes themes should not be come from local politicians but instead should come from the minds of artists. Of course, one problem with the monument is that it is small and out of sight, which the artist admits :
“It’s fairly opaque, I won’t deny that. Some may see the hoodie sweatshirt as a symbol. I don’t really want the work to be didactic.”
What do you think about the message behind the Trayvon Martin monument? Do you think it is appropriate to connect the death of the Florida man to the Civil War?
