People visit historic sites, museum exhibits, and commemorative objects and places because they are tangible representations of historic events. Individuals, internally defined groups, and communities of all sizes form culturally meaningful connections to these sites through the process of ‘‘monument building’’—the creation of concrete and abstract, tangible and intangible creative, artistic works. These artistic works in turn purposefully function to perpetuate the memory and ascribed meaning of a site, and the events that took place there and/or the people with whom they associate it. They also function to fix particular interpretations of the site—whether an associated event was good or bad, moral or amoral, ethical or unethical—particular truths, based in evidence or not, that are important to the artist or commissioners of the work. That this can be contentious is evident, and this contentiousness can be amplified when the sites in question are those associated with traumatic events such as military battles and shipwrecks.

中文翻译：

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艺术、纪念碑和记忆：简介

人们参观历史遗迹、博物馆展品以及纪念物品和地点，因为它们是历史事件的有形代表。个人、内部定义的群体和各种规模的社区通过“纪念碑建造”的过程与这些遗址形成了具有文化意义的联系——创造具体和抽象、有形和无形的创意、艺术作品。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 反过来，这些艺术作品有目的地使一个地点的记忆和赋予的意义、发生在那里的事件和/或与之相关的人永久化。它们还用于修正对场地的特定解释——无论相关事件是好是坏、道德还是非道德、道德或不道德——基于证据与否的特定事实，对艺术家或作品的委托人来说很重要。