In part three of our series on the Black Atlantic
we're looking at monuments and hidden histories we're looking at the work of artists
including Donald Locke and Hew Locke 2020 in Bristol the statue of
the slave trader Edward Colston is torn from its plinth
and rolled into the harbour look genuinely simply to my mind the toppling of the Colston statue was a beautiful moment it was a moment of racial and
social justice but it was also a way of saying ideas aren't just theory ideas
are also a way that we move in the world the theoretical territory of the Black Atlantic
says that what happened 300 years ago still has political and cultural and moral implications
for today the toppling of Colston is really the empire speaking back it's the children of empire
responding to this history of power it's an acknowledgement of the past and its consequences
its moralities remain alive in the present when you see artists whose work speaks to or
is informed by or exists in relationship to theories like the Black Atlantic you see
artists can hold that kind of complexity about finance and economy and ethics and
culture and identity and monuments and make work that is troubling and questioning beguiling
fascinating mesmerising always complex though always about the difficulties and
the complexities of these histories in Restoration Colston Hew Locke takes a photo of
the statue of Colston and garlands it with all of these diadems and objects and ephemera these kind
of gold garlandings which look rich but actually they're made of very cheap toy-like materials the
over-ostentation of this it's a strategy of irony it's a way of saying let's
turn this figure from someone who's on our plinth who's supposed to be
celebrated into a figure almost of mockery almost of absurdity so over the top we can no
longer take seriously their role as an honoured figure Hew Locke wants us to look closer not just at
the statue but at the figure being commemorated the Colston work that Hew Locke creates predates
the toppling of the statue but it asks exactly the same questions that people asked when they
finally ripped down that statue who is this person does he belong in our world right now or should
we be asking questions about his status and his raising up it's really about saying that these
are humans these are morally culpable figures and there's no time limit on asking questions about the moral comparability of those figures there's
no time limit on our memory and our relationship to the abuse and the killing
of tens of thousands of people trophies of empire by Donald Locke the Guyanese
artist it's a collection of these strange looking quite disturbing objects they
look phallic and they look violent Donald Locke talked about these bullets as he
described them as totems as emblems and markers of the violence of colonialism they speak not
of celebration but of violation of subjugation of chaining up of locking up of holding down
what does power look like to the powerless what does empire look like to the colonised
these are some of the disquieting questions that Donald Locke is inviting us to explore with
Trophies of Empire it's what really brings us back to the Black Atlantic as a proposition at its
heart this is about saying there's a morality to history the connections between the
present and the past don't fade they remain alive this episode we've been considering
monuments and hidden histories in part four of our series we're looking at the afterlifes
of slavery in contemporary artistic practice