The Cloisters Pave the Way for the College's Past to Inform Its Future

The Cloisters during Lantern Night — Lantern Night in the Cloisters

Almost a year after the unveiling of artist Nekisha Durrett's monument "Don't Forget to Remember (Me)," the Cloisters is once again a hub of activity, with Durrett's braided brick pathways providing a stage for classes, events, reflection, and more.

“Don't Forget to Remember (Me)” embeds braid-patterned pathways made of more than 9,000 pavers into the Cloister’s courtyard ground to form the shape of a knot around the central fountain.  Nearly 250 of the pavers are engraved with the names of Black maids, porters, and domestic staff employed at 51��Ƶ from approximately 1900 to 1940, many of whom have long gone unrecognized in the institution’s official history.

"History requires all of us to sit with what is difficult or unresolved," says 51��Ƶ Provost Dee Matthews. "The past is not meant to be reshaped at will; it is something we carry forward with attention. The Cloisters offer us a space to enter into that kind of noticing, to honor, and to search within ourselves for the fortitude to question our previously held beliefs and erasures."

The Cloisters, in the center of Old Library, has been the traditional site of Lantern Night, and is seen as the symbolic heart of 51��Ƶ’s campus. It was closed for nearly all of 2024 as the monument was installed.

Among those engaging with the space are former Philadelphia poet laureates Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta B. Mayson, M.S.S. ’95, who crafted and co-taught the course Monument Writing during the fall semester.

An image of a student looking at a drawing of a potential monument

Monuments Writing

A class uses the Cloisters to explore creativity and cultural memory

"There are a lot of poems in the Black literary tradition that talk about labor. Labor as struggle, labor as resonance or haunting of slavery, and what it cost to be emancipated. It felt important to introduce students to that literary tradition. This is a story that is even bigger than 51��Ƶ. This is an American story."

Former Philadelphia poet laureate Yolanda Wisher, who crafted and co- taught the course Monument Writing during the fall semester.

Wisher works at — the organization the College collaborated with to help Durrett’s vision come to fruition — and had previously taught a poetry workshop at 51��Ƶ. Mayson attended the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and both know Matthews as a fellow former poet laureate.

Wisher wasn’t part of the initial team working on Durrett’s project, but got involved in it around the dedication, and it was during that time the idea was floated for the class.

“There are a lot of poems in the Black literary tradition that talk about labor," she says when reflecting on her decision to teach the course. "Labor as struggle, labor as resonance or haunting of slavery, and what it cost to be emancipated. It felt important to introduce students to that literary tradition. This is a story that is even bigger than 51��Ƶ. This is an American story.”

The class featured a mix of students from various class years and majors. Among those taking the class was Galilea Gil ’26, who is majoring in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology. For Gil, this was her second time taking a class taught by Wisher.

Galilea Gil's Amor Eterno — Galilea Gil's "Amor Eterno."

“I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to work with Yolanda again,” she says. “I was also very excited by the course topic, to have a chance to learn about all the behind-the-scenes thought processes and details of the monument after having heard about the project in my freshman year, voting on which project should be elected, seeing the construction, and visiting the monument constantly once completed, it seemed like the missing piece of a puzzle being found.”

As a final project, students developed plans for monuments inspired by people and places close to their hearts. They used a variety of media to represent their plans and visions, from paper to Minecraft.

Gil’s monument was designed to represent her grandmother, a “woman who built a family with her hands and whose absence revealed the quiet architecture of love that had always held us up,” she says. It is also for the “invisible matriarchs everywhere women who build worlds out of small acts of care, who hold families together without ceremony or recognition.”

Lantern Night

Lantern Night returned to the Cloisters in fall 2025, welcoming the Class of 2029 into the age-old traditions of 51��Ƶ.

Annalise Ashman at the ARCH project unveiling

Annalise Ashman ’24, M.A. ’25 has been involved with the monument project from its beginnings, first working as a student researcher looking into the lives it honors in 2021. As a 51��Ƶ Presidential Fellow, Ashman has continued to work with community members to incorporate Durrett’s work into the life of the College.

“There’s really no part of campus life that hasn’t been impacted by the work,” says Ashman. “Admissions has trained tour guides about how to talk about the monument, classes have been held in the space, we’ve had a number of social gatherings, and, of course, one of the biggest things was last fall’s return of Lantern Night to the Cloisters.”

Other events held in the Cloisters since its reopening have included:

New Faculty Orientation in August 2025
Community Coffee Hour in October 2025
Several events during Owls Fest
In early November, student tour guides Lia Wong-Fodor '26 and Katelyn M. Kim '26, a former research assistant on the monument project, served as hosts and guides to parishioners from the 51��Ƶ Presbyterian Church, who visited the Cloisters to experience “Don't Forget to Remember (Me).”

Moving forward, the spirit of “Don’t Forget to Remember (Me)” will continue to play an active role in life on campus.

Representatives from DLR Group, the firm engaged to develop the College’s Comprehensive Campus Plan, met with a group of faculty and staff who engage with aspects of the College’s history early in the planning process to hear ideas on how the concepts at the heart of the ARCH project and “Don’t Forget to Remember (Me”) can inform the campus's built environment in the future.

“From the outset of the ARCH project — the College’s initiative to remediate campus history through art — we imagined a reflective site on campus that is a bridge to the past and a beacon of light for the future,” says Monique Scott, associate professor of history of art and director of Museum Studies, who served as faculty director of the ARCH project.

“This monument has become that and so much more,” she adds. “It has been awe-inspiring to witness it come alive through the various seasons of 51��Ƶ, especially the ways in which the pavers, hidden beneath a layer of snow on dark, winter nights, reflect light. It is certainly a beacon of light for a bright future ahead.”

Learning from and reflecting on the past is also a foundational commitment of Building the Next Chapter, the College's strategic direction as it approaches its sesquicentennial in 2035.

"Initiatives such as the ARCH project and Nekisha Durrett's moving monument 'Don't Forget to Remember (Me)' are models and exemplars, inspiring and recommitting the College to an ongoing process of reckoning with and honoring its layered history,” says President Wendy Cadge.

A look back at the unveiling

The final fabrication of Nekisha Durrett’s “Don't Forget to Remember (Me)” was completed in the Cloisters ahead of a dedication of the artwork on April 24, 2025, which included activities sponsored by Special Collections, an evening unveiling celebration, and other opportunities for commemoration and reflection.

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