At first glance, it barely registers. A low, green cuboid shape emerges from the ground, soft at the edges, almost dissolving into the landscape of the library lawn itself. There are no barricades surrounding it, no plaque instructing passersby to stop and gawk at it. Students cross by it with curiosity, perhaps noticing without truly understanding. It does not demand attention.
It waits.
In 2024, a kaleidoscope of tents once sprawled across “Liberation Lawn,” packed with protestors brandishing homemade banners and hand-stitched keffiyehs. There, students gathered not only to protest, but to question institutions, histories and even each other. Once home to a firestorm of student activism, the quiet grassy lawn outside the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library is now transformed into a temporary altar to a new form of active resistance. Where the encampment spread, an innocuous shape now holds vigil.
The “Memorial to the Memory of the Encampment” is a block of moss laid painstakingly in the space where Vassar’s encampment—part of a larger pro-Palestine movement on college campuses around the United States during the 2024 academic term—once filled the Library Lawn with the sound of nylon tents flapping in the wind and discontented voices rising in opposition against oppression.
To better understand the intentions behind this quiet commemoration, I spoke with student sculptor Gabriel Moss ’27, who put up on the work on April 13. We discussed how his work transforms the ephemerality of protest into something living, growing and deliberately understated:
Eduardo Culmer: “Before we really get into it, can you first explain your sculpture installation? What prompted you to make it?”
Gabriel Moss: “I’m currently in Sculpture II, where, earlier in this semester, we were assigned to create proposals of an imaginary monument or memorial, and I couldn’t get the encampment off my mind. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to approach the topic. I didn’t want to be attempting to speak on behalf of a larger group on campus, and I was not trying to make my experience more important than anyone else’s.
“I spent a day on the library lawn trying to remember what had occurred. I could still feel the community we built. We were less limited by the social entanglement of life here. I remembered going to sleep at night while others stayed awake to keep an eye out. I remembered what it felt like sitting in a circle and attempting to come to consensus on next moves after administration negotiators returned with their updates. I remembered when Palestinian community members would come visit us with their small children and lead us in dance, reminding us why we were there to begin with. I remember crying while we held Shabbat, reflecting on what it meant growing up illusioned by zionism, now being in the strongest Jewish community I had ever experienced.
“I remembered what the lawn looked like after we had cleared out. While we carefully cleaned, remnants of the encampment remained, flattened grass where tents stood, stake holes, imprints from our tables. In my project, I hoped to create a space of living memory for the encampment. I wanted to construct a physical site for others to come and reflect on their time in the encampment, or a space for individuals not involved to reflect on their responsibility to the movement for Palestinian liberation today. I wanted to remind people that even though the nationwide encampment movement may be in the past, the fight for Palestine is far from over.”
EC: “Can you talk more about your relationship to the 2024 encampments?”
GM: “I joined the encampment the day it was put up. At the time, it didn’t feel like there was an alternative—I was compelled to do it. It was the right thing to do, I had the capacity, so I did. I think of the warmth and support I felt from my peers, but also the threats, the pressure, the strategic manipulation of the institution. It still serves as a stark reminder of the limitations of existing within a private liberal institution like this, in which, despite their public image, profit will always reign supreme over morality and justice.”
EC: “So, Gabriel ‘Moss,’ why moss? What drove you to utilize the materials you did in this piece?”
GM: “Moss is one of the oldest living materials. Older than trees. Its resilience defines its existence, growing on surfaces hard or soft, through the cold and through the heat. I was hoping that, through this medium, I could convey that even without the physical encampment, the movement continues to grow, and the people of Palestine continue to resist through atrocities most of us will never be able to fully comprehend. Moss existed long before us, and will continue to live on long after us; the same is true of Palestine and its peoples.”
EC: “Due to the College’s rules on student installations on campus and the nature of the building materials you used, your sculpture’s not meant to last forever. Is the ephemeral nature of ‘The Memorial’ part of your message?”
GM: “100 percent. My piece will remain up for about two weeks, or until it collapses. The mud used will rot the wood or the sun will dry the mud out. The rain may tear it down before any of this. The encampment, too, got cut short. Cracks formed, larger powers were at play, and it came down in under two weeks. As my piece changes everyday with the weather, I hope it continues to play out as an encampment memory, even if that includes memories of decay.
“This piece requires constant care. I have been out there watering it up to six times a day, trying to keep it damp, comfortable, and safe. However, no matter how many times I checked on it, or how much time I spent caring for it, it will still eventually fall apart. The moss and mud were never going to last forever, and it was never meant to. Last night the storm caused the first major blow, and the piece has begun to unravel.”
EC: “Toni Morrison once said that ‘All good art is political! There is none that isn’t.’ In her view, art is meant to reflect who’s centered, erased or valued in the larger zeitgeist. As a studio art major and student activist creating art in a world where the most prominent artists of our generation often try to distance themselves and their work from the world of politics, what do you think the responsibility of an artist is when it comes to social commentary and strives for social justice?”
GM: “Well, the first thing I will say is that I am an Urban Studies major, Studio Art and Hispanic Studies correlates—”
EC: “Oh, my bad!”
GM: “Art is inherently political. No matter the content, everything can be politicized. I think artists should take the responsibility of controlling their narrative. Without this, art can easily be co-opted, something the school could easily do to my piece, and something I would reject.”
As building plans for the president’s 250ft “Arc de Trump” cast gilded shadows over social media platforms, many Americans are beginning to ask themselves the same host of questions: What is a monument? How do we choose which moments to commemorate? Whose names deserve to be emblazoned in stone for millennia?
Even after conducting this interview, Moss’ memorial offers no easy answers. It does not tower, nor does it proclaim permanence. In contrast to monuments that seek to fix history in place, Moss’ work shuns permanence altogether. It refuses the authority of Neo-Classicizing stone and instead embraces decay, care and continuation. If traditional monuments mark the end of a story, this one insists that the story is still unfolding. The movement it honors has not yet reached its conclusion.
The “Memorial to the Memory of the Encampment” softens, erodes and demands care. Since its installation over a week ago, the sculpture has already begun to deteriorate due to heavy winds and rains: Moss’ vision is unveiling itself to us in real time. In this state, it implores viewers not to look up in awe, but rather down in reflection. In doing so, the “Memorial to the Memory of the Encampment” reimagines the monument not as something that immortalizes power, but as something that insists on the preservation of a collective memory—fragile, collective and alive.
It waits.