Looking To The Future: Emily
For the last few months I have been in discussion with artist Paul Digby about his latest sculpture project ‘Looking To The Future: Emily’, and talking about BasementArtsProject’s position as co-creator on it.
Having got all of the funding applications in and the crowdfunding site set up, my attention has turned to public contextualisation of the project to promote the endeavour. As I sit down to start writing the first post, the strangest of coincidences occurs leading me to write quite a different opening piece than I had intended.
One of the discussions that I have been having with Paul has been around the Leeds Statue Review. The death of George Floyd two years ago, and the outcry surrounding that event, led to many protests around the world and helped to galvanise people around the idea of a review of monumental public statuary.
The review centred on the nature of the people generally immortalised in statue form and how people understand such monuments. In the UK the statue battleground truly opened up around the figure of Edward Colston, a 17th Century slave trader whose monument stood in Bristol. This statue had been a bone of contention within the city for many years before protesters removed it and dragged it through the streets, eventually dumping it in the harbour.
Despite the UK wide review of public statuary, the discussion/argument, call it what you will, has never gone away. The government has implemented what it calls a ‘retain and explain’ policy. Whilst the idea of understanding history through art objects is a good one, this does not address the different status afforded individuals through public monuments. Many people who disapproved of the pulling down of Colston’s statue talked of his philanthropy towards the city, nobody spoke of his significant involvement in the slave trade.
Creating public monuments to people automatically confers higher status on the individual involved whether we want it to or not.
On the day before I sat down to start writing this, a statue commemorating the life of Margaret Thatcher was erected in her home town of Grantham. In a post-Colston era of Statue Reviews this automatically poses the question: is it appropriate? Whilst Thatcher may have had no involvement in the slave trade, the monument could still be seen as an insult to many; Miners and the people of Liverpool to name but two significant groups. It did of course inspire a protest on the day that it was put in place, with someone launching eggs at it.
The £300,000, twenty foot high statue with its specially designed plinth to deter climbing, was rejected for installation in Westminster on the grounds that it may invite protest. The Westminster site was instead given to Gillian Wearing’s sculpture of Suffragette Millicent Fawcett. When people view the statue of Margaret Thatcher will they remember a benevolent leader, or the Battle of Orgreave and the so called ‘managed decline’ of Liverpool. I suspect it would be the former rather than the latter.
Which brings me to ‘Looking To The Future: Emily’ by Paul Digby.
‘Emily’ is a sculpture, currently a lifesize clay maquette of Nurse Emily Brayne, who began her nursing career on an ICU ward in January 2020, at the outbreak of the pandemic. The project seeks to celebrate the tenacity and dedication of those around us who looked after the sick and dying, at a time in which life for many was forcibly put on hold. Emily and many like her all over the world, were unable to shelter and take cover at a time when many feared for their lives in the face of an invisible killer. Without proper protective equipment or a vaccine at the outset, these are the people who helped us through the practicalities of staying alive, and got us to the point that we are at now; a point at which science has provided, if not a cure, a safety barrier at least.
The workshops associated with this project will look at some of the issues surrounding the meaning and interpretation of monumental statuary and how this project fits in with other monumental public sculptures.
BasementArtsProject currently has other public sculpture projects ongoing within the Leeds area which we will keep you updated on as things move along.
Over the coming weeks I will be in dialogue with Paul Digby about this project, both the sculpture and the debates. There is also a project page which we will be updating as we go
Whilst there is various funding applications ongoing we also have a Just Giving page which, should you wish or feel able, to contribute to the production of this work you can donate by using the button below
Fundraising Event
Featuring Ian McMillan (Poetry Recital), Emily Greaves & Ruth Holliday (In Conversation) and Paul Digby (Drawing) BOOK HERE
Bruce Davies | May 2022