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