Monument to ordinary black women installed in London, a tribute to black communities

London has been enriched with a monument to black women, the ordinary ones who live ordinary lives, the black everywomen, as they would say in English: it is a bronze sculpture, nearly three meters high and weighing 420 kilograms, depicting a woman dressed in jeans, Nike shoes and a short-sleeved T-shirt while looking at her cell phone. The monument, titled Reaching out, is the work of sculptor Thomas J. Price (London, 1981) and was unveiled yesterday: it was installed in the park of Three Mills Green, a suburb in the eastern part of the British capital, and is part of the city’s only public art trail, The Line, so named because it follows the Greenwich meridian. To date, Price’s work is the third sculpture on British soil depicting a black woman (the others are a monument to entrepreneur Mary Seacole also located in London, in front of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and a monument to black motherhood located in Stockwell). It is, however, the first one created by a black artist.

“I would like this sculpture,” the artist told the British newspaper The Guardian, “to become an opportunity for people to connect on an emotional level with the image of someone they hadn’t noticed before.” Price was not surprised when he learned that there are so few monuments of black women in the United Kingdom, although it does cause him discomfort.However, it is likely that this will now change, since the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, last June announced the creation of a Commission for Diversity in Public Spaces with the clear intention of valuing minorities through public statuary as well.

The goal of Reaching Out, the artist said, is to create a very familiar image that can challenge the “triumphant sculpture” we normally see. But that’s not all: Price’s hope is to “help create awareness about nuanced representation, allowing black people to really feel visible and to see their experiences valued,” as well as to “create a sense of familiarity in society that could help increase our ability to share empathy.”

Price, thirty-nine, trained at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art, and works as a figurative artist. In his art, which makes use primarily of bronze and aluminum using traditional (even ancient) methods, he creates anonymous figures, mostly of people of color, to reflect on how black communities have been represented in art history. His works are populated with anonymous, anti-heroic figures that aim to overturn stereotypes about sculpture. His most important exhibition(Now You See Me) was held in 2016 at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Monument to ordinary black women installed in London, a tribute to black communities

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