1992, "Commemoration Day" installation at the Trophies of Empire art exhibition

has description: Bristol-born artist Carole Drake (a former pupil of Colston's Girl's School) created the installation "Commemoration Day" at the Arnolfini as part of the Trophies of Empire art exhibition, with the aim of drawing attention to Colston's involvement in the slave-trade.

"Featuring a projected image of students from the artist’s old school, Colston Girls’, climbing on the statue of Colston, a replica of which hung from the ceiling, casting a haunting shadow on the projection. Drake wrote that ‘into this dark hole had been sucked the histories of thousands of black children, men and women, sacrificed a second time in order to present an uncomplicated, unsullied image of Colston as a benign patriarch’. The installation included a sound tape of the school hymn Rejoice ye pure in heart. Underneath the statue lay a bed of chrysanthemums, supposedly Colston’s favourite flower, which were left to slowly wither and decay during the exhibition." (Bluecoat Library)
has type: contestation
took place at: Bristol; United Kingdom
took place on or within: 28 August 1992
had duration: 4 months

is referred to by: Bluecoat Libary; Bristol Radical History Group, 'Edward Colston: A century of dissent and protest' (2021)

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Statue of Edward Colston

Cast in Stone