What are Statues For? Poetry Workshop

Part of the funded Being Human public engagement grant (SAS, AHRC, BA).

Join a day of creative workshops and a round table to probe the history of Imperial statues in Britain, including those on the front of Deptford Town Hall of Sir Francis Drake, Horatio Nelson and Robert Blake, and be part of the discussion about the connections between those commemorated and the rise of slavery and the British capitalist empire.

How did they come to be memorialised and why? How do statues of figures connected to the slave trade and British colonisation symbolise British history and culture? Are they part of ‘invented traditions’ of national belonging based on racial domination? What does it mean about our present society that so many of them remain in place, uncontested? Why don’t local residents have a more democratic say about our symbolic urban landscape? What can we do about it?

Come and join the debate about the future of such statues. Should they remain, or are there more creative and inspiring ways to re-imagine our multiracial history and culture? Join one of our creative workshops on poetry, photography or campaign building.

Poetry workshop led by poet Miss Yankee.