The Paper's reporter Zhu Zhe reported comprehensively
In a modern city with high-rise buildings and long roads, urban sculptures are street landscapes, as well as the accumulation of urban history, culture and art, and are permeated with social and humanistic concepts and values. Recently, the British cultural and educational charity Art UK released the first comprehensive statistical results of London's public statues and monuments.
According to the survey, 20.5% of the nearly 1500 memorial statues across London are male figures, about 8% of the public sculptures depict animals, a number of nearly 100, while only 4% depict women.
One of the lion statues in Trafalgar Square. There are nearly 100 animal sculptures in London, twice as many as female statues.
Among male statues, royals, military figures, politicians, writers, artists, designers and actors are the most common, while most memorial statues of women depict members of the royal family. Nine of the 19 statues of royal women were dedicated to Queen Victoria (1819-1901) in honor of her great deeds.
Queen Victoria Memorial at Buckingham Palace
According to the statistics, only 1.1% of the total number of statues of colored people on the streets of London, of which 0.9% are men of color and 0.2% are women of color. One of the earliest female statues of women of color in the city is a bust of Noor Inayat Khan (a descendant of the Indian royal family and a famous British agent), located in Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, Camden, which has been established for less than 10 years.
Bust of Noor Inayat Khan tripadvisor
The statistical study, part of art UK's national research project, was funded in part by City Hall. The research team, which has been collecting data since 2017, found that London has the highest proportion of female sculptures of all major cities in the UK.
In britain, the imbalance in the gender ratio of human statues has been discussed earlier. Terri Bell-Halliwell, founder of InVisible Women, a social group dedicated to promoting gender equality in public statues in the UK, has said that "this is the oldest national pro-patriarchal propaganda campaign that seeks to convince us that only men deserve respect".
British social activist groups have also been actively raising money for the construction of statues of women, such as Aurora Metro Arts and Media, which has been planning to erect a bronze statue of Virginia Woolf by the river in Richmond on the River Thames since 2018, and sculptor Laurie DietzenGremmer has designed a model for it. The construction of this life-sized monument cost around £50,000 and crowdfunding is now in its final stages.
By the River Richmond, Virginia Woolf statue schematic aurora CAMPAIGN figure
On Women's Day 2021, the Public Sculpture and Statues Association has created a database of women's statues that currently houses 117 statues, including statues of the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale and others.
"These remarkable women live full and extraordinary lives. The sculptures reflect their achievements for future generations, and they are commemorated in bronze or stone works of art," the database states, "all statues do not include royal figures, mythological or allegorical female figures who behave differently from those who succeed by their own efforts".
Screenshot of the British Public Sculpture and Statue Society Women's Statue Database
In June 2020, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced the creation of The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, which aims to improve "london's public sector diversity to ensure that the capital's landmarks properly reflect London's achievements and diversity". This year, the commission announced it would set up a £1 million fund to create a new landmark in London.
Sadiq Khan stressed that "London's diversity is its greatest strength, but for a long time our statues, street names and buildings have only shown a part of our city's complex history".
Artist Carleen De Sozer paints a large mural about musician Evelyn Dove
The committee encourages community organizations to actively apply for funds to improve public spaces. According to the official release of the London Government, the amount that the public can apply for ranges from £1,000 to £25,000.
Editor-in-Charge: Ying Xu
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