A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020, by prominent British sculptor Marc Quinn, which has been installed in Bristol on the site of the fallen statue of the slave trader Edward Colston
THE empty plinth in Bristol where the statue of slave trader Edward Colston used to stand was filled today with a sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester after a secret dawn operation.
The figure of Bristolian Jen Reid, who was photographed standing on the plinth in June after Colston’s statue was pulled down by anti-racism protesters, was created by artist Marc Quinn and erected without the council’s permission.
Ms Reid said that the new statue was about “making a stand for my mother, for my daughter, for black people like me.”
SETH SANDRONSKY recommends a Marxist critique of the ‘race-first’ views of the influential black US theorist Cedric Robinson
ALAN MORRISON explores, and recommends, a remarkable collection of poems that explore war photography with the moral responsibility of a documentary film-maker
Chris Searle speaks to British pianist ZOE RAHMAN
KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage