Replaced Street Signs is part of the Monumental Research program initiated by theorist Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and visual artist Jonas Staal and constitutes a public intervention within de Schilderswijk (Painters' neighborhood) in The Hague, The Netherlands, during which several street signs, featuring the names of Dutch and Flemish masters, will be taped over by an adhesive sticker with the same text in Arabic.

Replaced Street Signs considers the meaning of specifically Dutch cultural heritage, the painters of the Dutch Golden Age, in relation to urban renewal projects in so-called probleemwijken, high immigrant/unemployment level neighborhoods in major Dutch cities. These neighborhoods are often located in neglected parts of the city, but usually have a long and rich (cultural) history before they became (largely) immigrant worker areas, therefore, one can speak from a cultural distance between the neighborhood and its inhabitants. The public intervention aims to establish a link between the 'urban update' of aforementioned neighborhoods — building new houses, camera protection, etc. — and a 'cultural update': the realignment of the neighborhood and its inhabitants.

Similar procedures can be found in the Chinese neighborhood of The Hague: an area largely inhabited by Chinese immigrants and their offspring, called Chinatown for obvious commercial reasons. In Chinatown, all street signs have been translated into Chinese. Thus, a cultural update of the neighborhood to realign the cultural heritage of the Asian inhabitants with Dutch cultural heritage present in the street names which date back to The Hague's first streets and canals.

The consequent implementation of similar 'cultural updates' within other, less privileged, but no less culturally detached neighborhood such as the Schilderswijk, reflect on the level of toleration towards immigrant minorities. If one compares the level of 'real' integration of Chinese and Moroccan immigrants, the difference will be negligible in terms of language, community-internal criminality. However, a 'cultural update' in a Chinese neighborhood is tolerated, presumably because they start commercial enterprises, generate income, tourism and provide the neighborhood with a pittoresque couleur locale, whereas a similar update in a Moroccan or Turkish neighborhood would only heighten feelings of insecurity amongst the remaining Dutch inhabitants and vehement protests from parties both left and right wing.

Another contemporary cultural development is relevant for the analysis that Replaced Street Signs aims to provide. Popular (second/third generation immigrant) rap and hip-hop culture attaches great pride to the probleemwijk as their cultural and musical background. Amateur video clips often refer to monuments, street names and the general geography of the area as belonging to the domain of the rappers, thus effectively incorporating cultural heritage that usually associated with the dominant Dutch culture. A striking example of what can be only seen as an autonomous cultural update can be observed in a recent video clip by Youssel & Kamal, entitled ' Eindhoven represent', which ends in the decapitation of Dutch populist right-wing politician Geert Wilders and refers their probleemwijk Woensel as being the 'Gaza strip of Eindhoven'. The status of probleemwijk leads to a strong attachment to the presentation, the names of streets and the neighborhood. Replaced Street Signs aims to analyze this phenomenon.