Julieta Gil's Digital Monument to Feminist Protest Wins Lumen Prize

Julieta Gil, an artist based in Oregon, created 'Nuestra Victoria' (Our Victory, 2019-20), a digital project that uses photogrammetry to capture the Victoria Alada monument in Mexico City after it was tagged and painted by feminist protesters in 2019. The monument, located on Paseo de la Reforma, had been boarded up by the city to obscure the protest messages. Gil's high-fidelity 3D scan preserves the transformed monument and is available for download from her website. The project won the Lumen Prize in 2020. Gil's subsequent works include 'Hombres Ilustres' (2021), a video panning along digitized scans of 77 monuments along Reforma that memorialize only men, mostly military figures, and 'Pedestal para persona digna de ser recordada' (2021), a wax plaque capturing protest graffiti. Gil's work questions how to restore justice rather than monuments. She attended protests against systemic violence against women in Mexico City starting in 2019. Her recent exhibitions include 'Field Recordings' (2022) at Ditch Projects in Springfield, Oregon, and 'Revertir el Desgaste' (2021) at Campeche, Mexico City. Casey Reas, a digital artist and cofounder of Feral File, selected Gil for Future Greats 2023.