Victoria Street, Bristol 1890. Paul Townsend//flickr.cc(by-nc)
What are we to do with statues from a colonialist past? The recent furore over the memorialisation of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford has made us question not only who should be honoured in public spaces but also who makes up the public whose past is being collectively represented.
In Bristol, the statue of the merchant, slave trader, and philanthropist Edward Colston (1636-1721) has become a lightning rod for racial and class tensions in the city today. Some, inspired by the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement have called for its removal, some for its recontextualisation, whilst others have attempted to subvert it through what Alan Rice has characterised as ‘guerilla memorialisation’.
