Colston was a member of the Royal African Company, which transported about 80, men, women and children from Africa to the Americas. On his death in , he bequeathed his wealth to charities and his legacy can still be seen on Bristol's streets, memorials and buildings.
After the statue was toppled, a protester was pictured with his knee on the figure's neck - reminiscent of the video showing George Floyd, the black man who died while being restrained by a Minnesota police officer. The statue was later dragged through the streets of Bristol and thrown into the harbour. The empty plinth was used as a makeshift stage for protesters. Home Secretary Priti Patel called the tearing down of the statue "utterly disgraceful", adding that "it speaks to the acts of public disorder that have become a distraction from the cause people are protesting about".
In a statement, Avon and Somerset Police confirmed there would be an investigation into the "act of criminal damage". He said: "Statues are about saying 'This was a great man who did great things. In a statement the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees said he knew the removal of the statue would divide opinion but it was "important to listen to those who found the statue to represent an affront to humanity".
In Parliament Square, the statue of Sir Winston Churchill was sprayed with graffiti, and a Black Lives Matter sign attached - an act described as "stupid and counterproductive" by foreign office minister James Cleverly. And in Warwickshire, protesters caused the closure of the M6 for around an hour following on from the demonstrations in Coventry city centre.
It comes after clashes on Saturday night between police and protesters saw missiles and fireworks aimed at police and bikes thrown by some demonstrators. The Metropolitan Police said 14 officers were injured, including a mounted officer who came off a horse as it bolted down Whitehall.
The public removing a piece of art originally instated by a past, distant public, while unconventional, was an extremely creative way of sending a message to the rest of the public and the political elite — Bristol was no longer going to tolerate the glorification of such a man.
The exhibition itself was surprisingly short — it was clear that the statue was its focal point. A projector played a video with footage from the protests, alongside interviews and testimony from protestors and political figures, which will not only prove significant in their chronicling of history but are additionally great signifiers of cultural change.
Overall, the exhibition was very succinct, bright and and clean — I think the goal of the exhibition is to provoke thought and opinion rather than to overload you with information — yet it remained educational and unafraid to present Colston for what he was, in a way which the statue and his false legacy had previously made impossible.
While it is essential to chiefly look at the statue and its removal from a political point of view, it is also interesting to consider what this means for statues as an art form in the future. Innately, statues are a form of public expression and consumption, created to preserve the legacy of a deeply influential figure, or symbol.
However, historically, they have been erected with the intention to glorify and immortalise a figure. Gallup DAL. Peoples-Jone… CLE. Green ARI. Hardman KC. Hopkins ARI.
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