In the late 1990s, three monuments - Crab Park Boulder, Marker of Change and Standing with Courage, Strength and Pride - were built in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Located within a few city blocks of one another, the monuments were grassroots initiatives that challenged the norms of civic art by claiming a place in public space for society's more vulnerable groups, and each figured in debates about many kinds of violence.

Speaking for a Long Time offers unique insights into the creation of memorials and the multiple, often contested meanings that can be attached to them in...