Decolonizing monuments: The Windrush Commissions

Last week, I provided a context for the new Windrush public art commissions in London, of which the first one, a public sculpture in Hackney by Veronica Ryan, was unveiled last month. This commission was a part of the Hackney Council’s Windrush Engagement Programme and will be followed by another public sculpture by Thomas J Price next year. Two weeks ago, the winner of the national Windrush Commemoration Committee’s commission was announced: Jamaica’s own Basil Watson, whose sculpture will be installed next year at Waterloo station. These three commissions not only recognize the historic Windrush Generation, which is as such long overdue, but also and crucially provide symbolic redress to the Windrush Scandal in 2018 and, more generally, are part of efforts to decolonize public monuments in the UK and to address the histories of racism and marginalization.

This week, I take a closer look at the Veronica Ryan commission. Veronica Ryan, who was born in Montserrat in 1965, moved to London with her parents as a child and grew up there. She now lives in New York City, where she moved in 1990.

Veronica Ryan is one of the most underestimated of Black British artists and it is gratifying that she is now finally getting her dues, with a recent OBE, top-notch gallery representation with Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, and Alison Jacques, London, several major exhibitions, and now this Windrush commission.

Without having seen it in person, I am quite taken with Veronica Ryan’s sculptural group, which consists of three giant Caribbean fruits, two in green oxidized bronze and one in white marble: as the titles of the group say, a Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae), and Soursop (Annonaceae). The fruits look as if they have tumbled off a Caribbean market stand, or from the trees in a provision garden, and landed in the streets of London, echoing the movement of Caribbean people into the UK and the sustaining and socially transformative role of the memories and cultures they brought with them. A dream-like, surreal quality is added by the giant size of the fruits and the contrast between the earthiness and colour realism of the breadfruit and especially, the soursop, with the ethereal white colour of the marble custard apple (or sweetsop, as we call it here in Jamaica.)

With their arresting visual poetry, the sculptures claim symbolic space in a context where Caribbean people and their cultures have not always been welcome and where the historical power relationships with the Caribbean have been extractive and exploitative. While they do not have the louder, declarative quality of conventional political art, Ryan’s sculptures are deeply political and allude to the complex relationships and histories between the Caribbean and the UK in a way that offers multiple and rich interpretative possibilities.

The allusions to natural history as a practice are instructive, for instance, with the use of the scientific plant family names in the titles. During the colonial period, plant species were transplanted across the globe for economic purposes, along with the forced movement of peoples that was part of the plantation economy. The breadfruit was one such transplanted fruit, although it has now become an omnipresent and well-established food staple throughout the Caribbean, while the soursop and sweetsop have much longer histories in indigenous culture and are part not only of the food culture but also of a traditional pharmacopeia which goes back to the Taino. The classificatory impulses and socio-economic applications of natural history were a full-fledged part of the colonial process, as can still be seen in botanical gardens and natural history museums. Ryan’s practice of gathering and collecting, organizing, naming, and displaying natural specimens, which is also evident in her other work, gently flips the script on these natural history dynamics, alluding to its popular uses, which is another way in which her Windrush sculptures reclaim symbolic space and ownership.

While the response to the Veronica Ryan commission has been generally positive, there has also been some negative criticism, which is inevitable in the current opinion economy, especially with such a charged subject. Producing public art, even in a decolonial frame, is a hazardous venture for any artist or commissioning entity these days. What took me aback, however, were the complaints that the marble custard apple should also have been realistically coloured like the other two fruits. From where I stand, the contrast between the bronze and marble fruits is technically, visually, and conceptually effective and even necessary, as it adds depth and ambivalence to the politics of visibility and presence the project represents. But the criticism illustrates how deep-rooted the expectation of realism and perceived accuracy really is when in matters of collective representation and the representational stakes are acutely high with the Windrush commissions. I am still struggling to understand why this is such a strong expectation.

Some of my Puerto Rican colleagues, furthermore, noted the similarity with the Favourite Fruit (The Avocados) public sculptures in Santurce, a neighbourhood in San Juan which is now an art and fashionable nightlife district. This work by the Puerto Rican artist Annex Burgos consists of four giant bronze avocados and are installed in the square of a small historical market complex. I do not know if Veronica Ryan’s work was inspired by the Puerto Rican example, with which it certainly resonates, or if she was even aware of it, but the intent of her work is quite different, and its significance hinges crucially on the placement of the Caribbean market fruits in the streetscape of London. And, while the scale and public nature of the sculptures is new, the project is also consistent with general directions in Ryan’s work in recent years.

Next week, Part 3 will explore the Basil Watson commission.

Dr Veerle Poupeye is an art historian specialized in art from the Caribbean. She lectures at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica, and works as an independent curator, writer, researcher, and cultural consultant. Her personal blog can be found at veerlepoupeye.com.