In August 2018, the Victoria City Council’s decision to remove a statue of Sir John A Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, from outside the City Hall sparked controversy due to the lack of transparency in the public consultation process. This case study explores how public consultation can shape the… Read More
The first Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedmen’s Memorial, was erected in Washington, D.C., in 1876. Funded by formerly enslaved persons, the statue celebrates President Abraham Lincoln. During the American Civil War, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, offering limited freedom to enslaved people. Shortly after the creation of… Read More
The Voortrekker monument is a large granite building which represents Dutch settler nationalism in South Africa. It was built as an attempt to construct a narrative of Afrikaner nationalist pride, tying it in with a complicated legacy of colonialism and racial prejudice. It has thus been subject to criticism… Read More
Almost a century after the last Confederate monument was erected in the heart of Richmond, the state capital of Virginia, a new counter-monument was installed in 2019 by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Modelled after its neighbouring Confederate statues, the equestrian statue of a Black man is a… Read More
The Monument to the Flags is a monument in São Paulo, Brazil, that commemorates the Bandeirantes Paulistas. A group of colonists explored the territory of the Portuguese colony as Brazil expanded its limits. The Monument, designed by Victor Brecheret, is one of the most significant statues in the state. Read More
In February 1913, the killing of three settlers by Aboriginal people in 1864 was commemorated with the unveiling of the Explorers’ Monument. Yet the history remembered by the memorial was just one side of the story – its plaque failed to mention the deaths of almost 40 Aboriginal people… Read More
On February 6, 2020, a historical plaque marking the site of a slave auction went missing in Charlottesville, Virginia. For some residents, the removal of the plaque revived complaints about the inadequacy of the memorial; others felt the removal erased Black history. Five days later, police arrested a local… Read More
The Duke of Sutherland statue from 1837 has been contested already since the 1990s, when organisations and locals from the Highlands asked for its removal due to the Duke’s involvement in the Highland clearances. In the last decades there have been different petitions and actions asking for its removal,… Read More
The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, holds the dichotomous and, at times, violentlegacy of race in the American South. It memorialises Edmund Pettus, a leader of the Whitesupremacist Ku Klux Klan, and it was a site of pivotal Civil Rights Movement protests in the 1960s.Two petitions to rename… Read More
On January 18, Lima celebrated 490 years since its Spanish foundation, an anniversary that coincides with a dynamic phase of restoration in the historic centre. Yet, beneath the festivities lies a troubling reality. The city’s new right-wing administration has reintroduced the contested equestrian statue of its founder, Francisco Pizarro,… Read More
Unveiled in 1871, this statue commemorates Prince Albert – the husband and Prince Consort of Queen Victoria – in the grounds of Leinster House. The statue was moved to its current position in 1923, replaced by a Cenotaph memorial to Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. In 2018, a petition… Read More
A copy of Bright Bimpong’s Freedom statue was gifted to Denmark by individuals from the Virgin Islands in 2017, to mark the 100th anniversary of Denmark selling the islands to the United States. In 2019, the statue was finally placed in front of Eigtveds Pakhus, a colonial-era warehouse, which… Read More