Founded in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in 1989, REPOhistory was a multi-ethnic group of writers,

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight ...

and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ists,

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

s, and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

s. The organization's name means "repossessing history" and was modeled after the movie title '' Repo Man''. REPOhistory's goal was to "relocate, retrieve, and document missing or absent historical narratives from specific sites in New York City." In order to accomplish this goal, the group created public installations, performances, educational activities, printed matter and other visual media, though REPOhistory is best known for erecting temporary historical markers on city streets that focused on issues of slavery, colonialism, race, gender, and class. Through this process of inserting into public spaces the absent stories of omitted people and events, the group sought to question the manner in which

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

is constructed and represented. REPOhistory brought together artists and scholars for six major public projects and several other smaller events. The group believed that the arts were essential to shaping a collective

cultural identity Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct cu ...

and their work instigated a questioning of the cultural practices of the 1980s and the early 1990s.Constanzo, Jim. "REPOhistory's Circulation: The Migration of Public Art to the Internet" ''Art Journal'', Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 32-37.

Notes

External links

about REPOHistory
Member Gregory Sholette
Member Tom Klem {{DEFAULTSORT:Repohistory Arts organizations based in New York City 1989 establishments in New York City Arts organizations established in 1989 History organizations based in the United States