Tear Down their Statues, Build your own Monuments Miscellaneous

As we tear down their statues we shall build monuments of our own.

Alex von Tunzelmann - Fallen Idols
In 2020, statues across the world were pulled down in an extraordinary wave of global iconoclasm. From the United States and the United Kingdom to Canada, South Africa, the Caribbean, India, Bangladesh, and New Zealand, Black Lives Matter protests defaced and hauled down statues of slaveholders, Confederates, and imperialists. Edward Colston was hurled into the harbour in Bristol, England. Robert E. Lee was covered in graffiti in Richmond, Virginia. Christopher Columbus was toppled in Minnesota, beheaded in Massachusetts, and thrown into a lake in Virginia. King Leopold II of the Belgians was set on fire in Antwerp and doused in red paint in Ghent. Winston Churchill was daubed with the word 'racist' in London.

Statues are one of the most visible - and controversial - forms of historical storytelling. The stories we tell about history are vital to how we, as societies, understand our past and create our future. So whose stories do we tell? Who or what defines us? What if we don't all agree? How is history made, and why?
Alex von Tunzelmann is a bestselling author, screenwriter, broadcaster, and media commentator. She lives in London.

The Stone Circle in SE4.

This is the story of the Stone Circle and sun clock installed on Hilly Fields for the Millennium in 2000. It covers the people and ideas behind the conception, planning and installation of this unique and much-loved local landmark. Presented by Clare Cowen of The Brockley Society.

Lucy Coleman Talbot - The Lore of Crossbones Graveyard

Lucy Coleman Talbot wrote her PhD on the famed Crossbones Graveyard, SE1, and has been advocating for its protection since 2016. Her landscape biography explores the layers of history and heritage encased within this post-medieval burial ground, which has become a place of myth, mourning, ritual, and resistance.

Owned by Transport for London since the 1990s, campaigns to protect the burial ground against commercial development date back to the 1880s. However, it is shamanic poet John Constable's encounter with The Goose during an experimental, psychedelic writing session that sparked a vibrant new chapter in the graveyard's story.

This evening Lucy will introduce you to The Goose and her Outcast Dead. Allowing her to demonstrate how the lore of Crossbones has transformed the burial ground into a memorial for all those existing at the margins of society, dead and alive... a patch of wild garden in a South London side street.

Books sales thanks to The Word Bookshop
Films from Video Strolls

Category: Attractions | Talks and Lectures

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