Monument Lab Director and Co-founder, Paul Farber, PhD, Named 2024 Praxis Award Recipient
VILLANOVA, Pa – The Villanova University Ethics Program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has named Paul Farber, PhD, director and co-founder of Monument Lab, a nonprofit public art and history studio based in Philadelphia, the recipient of the 2024 Praxis Award in Professional Ethics. The Praxis award recognizes a professional or academic who exemplifies the highest ethical ideals of their profession or who has contributed to professional ethics scholarship.
Dr. Farber’s commitment to ethics is evident in the Monument Lab’s mission and purpose. Founded in 2012, Monument Lab emerged from a series of classroom conversations in Dr. Farber’s and co-founder Ken Lum’s courses about monument art. Realizing the potential and impact public art can have on communities, the duo endeavored to bring these conversations to those who are most affected—the people.
Monument Lab cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present and future of monuments. Striving for generational change in public art and history, Monument Lab has connected with people around the world through exhibitions, research programs and online engagement, aiming to elevate diverse stories and foster collective memory. Monument Lab ensures tangible memorials reflect collaborative narratives that serve the community—making it emblematic of Villanova's commitment to the greater good and deserving of the Praxis Award.
“What Dr. Farber continues to demonstrate is how resourceful his research can be for communities that are wrestling with their past and how to remember it in their public art,” says Mark Doorley, PhD, director of the Ethics Program. “For many communities, the past is a source of strength, but also a source of pain. Dr. Farber’s approach to memory, history and monuments provides a sensitive, but productive, way for communities to work collaboratively on a more adequate memorialization of their shared past and a positive path forward into a shared future.”
Dr. Farber will formally receive the award and present a lecture about the work of the Monument Lab on Thursday, April 4, 2024, at 7 p.m. in the Villanova Room of the Connelly Center. The event is free and open to the public.
About Villanova University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Since its founding in 1842, Villanova University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been the heart of the Villanova learning experience, offering foundational courses for undergraduate students in every college of the University. Serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students, the College is committed to fortifying them with intellectual rigor, multidisciplinary knowledge, moral courage and a global perspective. The College has more than 40 academic departments and programs across the humanities, social sciences, and natural and physical sciences.