In Britain, a Black Lives Matter Statue Sparks an Important Debate Around Representation

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By Liam Hess

Early on Wednesday morning in Bristol, England, a crane pulled up to an empty plinth in the city’s central square and carefully lowered into place a statue of local activist Jen Reid. Merely weeks ago, the site was the center of global attention, following a Black Lives Matter protest held on June 7, which saw protesters remove the original statue and roll it through the streets before depositing it in Bristol Harbor. The figure previously honored was Edward Colston, a local merchant who built his wealth off the Atlantic slave trade in the early 18th century, and whose name lives on across street signs, buildings, and schools due to his philanthropic efforts within the city.

Yet where Colston’s statue had stood in the square for 125 years before being toppled last month, Reid’s likeness lasted just over 24 hours before being removed by the local council.

In a spontaneous moment as the protest began winding down, Reid climbed atop the plinth and held her fist up in the Black Power salute; captured by her husband in an Instagram post, the photograph promptly went viral and was shared around the world. According to the BBC, within days, Reid was contacted by the artist Marc Quinn, a star of the ’90s Young British Artists movement who has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery. “I was in his studio by the Friday after the protest with 201 cameras surrounding me, taking pictures of me from every conceivable angle,” Reid told reporters. “It’s about making a stand for my mother, for my daughter, for Black people like me.”

Activist Jen Reid stands in front of Marc Quinn’s A Surge of Power (Jen Reid).

The removal of Colston’s statue triggered important discussions about the figures glorified in monumental statuary in British cities, many of whom made their fortunes, like Colston, through colonialist exploitation and the Atlantic slave trade. (Previously, the best-known example was a statue of the 19th-century mining magnate and white supremacist Cecil Rhodes, whose statue at Oriel College, Oxford, was the subject of protests and petitions for removal during the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall movement.) While senior governmental figures, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel, condemned the removal of Colston’s statue on the basis of “lying about [British] history,” others noted that the removal of the statue was long overdue—in particular given that, according to a 2014 poll, a near-majority of the Bristol population had already expressed their wish for the statue to be removed.

But while few could disagree with the powerful visual impact of Marc Quinn’s (now temporary) replacement, since its erection and subsequent removal over the past 48 hours, the statue has already been the subject of fierce debate. Some have questioned whether it was appropriate for Quinn, as a white artist and a notorious provocateur within the art world, to insert himself into the narrative without invitation. In an op-ed for The Art Newspaper, Black British artist Thomas J. Price described the statue as “a votive to appropriation,” noting that “a moment of social change that should have been about bringing equality and real opportunities to Black people has been hijacked.”

Alastair Sooke, the chief art critic of the Daily Telegraph, seemed to agree. Given Quinn’s history of sensationalism, most famously with his sculpture of Kate Moss pulling yoga poses cast in gold at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, it’s hard not to be cynical about Quinn’s intentions with the project, no matter the extent of Reid’s involvement. (Quinn has also noted that any proceeds from the sale of the work will go to two charities working to improve the teaching of Black history in British schools, as chosen by Reid. But given his blue-chip gallery representation and previous high sale prices, some have interpreted the move as disingenuous.)

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd that swept through the U.S. over the past few months, its effects have also been keenly felt overseas. Though smaller in scale, the protests in countries like Britain are not merely a show of support for Black Americans in the face of police brutality, but also a reckoning with the country’s own history of colonialism, slavery, and racial inequality.

In the U.S., these symbols exist most notably in the form of monuments to Confederate generals built many decades after the Civil War had ended. They are not true historical memorials, but were created as an insidious means of intimidating African Americans during the era of the Jim Crow laws. In Britain, a country which many historians would argue is less adept at grappling with its history of racial inequality and colonialism, the toxic values of those glorified in these statues are not as easily identifiable without the iconography of the Confederacy to mark them out—yet, as many Black Britons have expressed, their prominent positions in city centers and municipal buildings still cast an oppressive shadow. While there are no easy answers for what exactly to do with these statues once removed, the city of Bristol’s plan to display Colston’s statue in a museum setting alongside placards from the protest isn’t a bad start.

What, then, to put on the plinths? Quinn’s attempt may have been ultimately unsuccessful, both in terms of its swift removal and its lack of unanimous support, but it’s hard not to see the fact that these debates are taking place not just within activist circles, and now at the highest levels of government, as a marker of progress. There may be no perfect solution. Price argues that this should not be a deterrent to ongoing debate, but rather a sign that we should be taking things slowly. “For real change, we need to do the real work, which isn’t achievable by quick ﬁxes, only with an in-depth examination of the power structures that govern our society,” he wrote.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Bristol’s Mayor, Marvin Rees, who described Quinn’s statue as “a thoroughly worthwhile contribution to our search for our way forward,” but emphasized that ultimately “the people of Bristol will decide its future.” Only one thing seems to unite many Bristolians engaging with the debate around Quinn’s sculpture: that Colston’s statue does not reflect the values of their city in 2020. Its removal was just the beginning, and given the level of scrutiny, what it is replaced with will inevitably become a historic monument all of its own.

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