Founded in New York City in 1989, REPOhistory was a multi-ethnic group of writers, visual and performance artists, filmmakers, and historians.
The organization was named after the concept of "repossessing history." REPOhistory's goal was to relocate, retrieve, and document missing or absent historical narratives from specific sites in New York City. In order to accomplish this goal, the group created public installations, performances, educational activities, printed matter and other visual media. REPOhistory tried to insert into history stories of peoples and events which had previously been omitted. Through this process, they sought to question the ways in which history is constructed. Their scholarship and work addressed historical issues of race, colonialism, class, gender. REPOhistory brought together artists and scholars for six major public projects and several other smaller events. The group believed that the arts were essential to shaping a collective cultural identity and their work instigated a questioning of the cultural practices of the 1980s and the early 1990s.