Absolutes and Ambiguity: Transforming Artefacts Towards Non-violence.

This article examines the role of colonial-era monuments as cultural artefacts that often perpetuate violent, compartmentalizing worldviews rooted in colonialism, and proposes a conceptual framework called the "spectrum of potential violence" to assess their relation to violence and non-violence. It distinguishes between "absolute artefacts," which reinforce singular, violent identities and narratives, and "ambiguous artefacts," which provoke critical engagement and foster connectivity, thus aligning with non-violence. The paper critiques common responses to contested monuments—recontextualization and fallism (removal)—for their limitations, and introduces "refacement," defined as the deliberate alteration of a monument’s form (e.g., through protest graffiti) to create ambiguity and open space for dialogue and decolonial imaginaries. Using a graffitied 2020 New York monument as a case study, the article argues that refacement can transform monuments from symbols of colonial violence into sites of resistance and non-violent contestation, contributing to decolonization efforts by reshaping public memory and social relations.