A toppled statue of a slave trader has been placed in a UK museum. Could this approach work in Australia?

With the dark legacies of colonial figures increasingly under the spotlight, removing and reframing their monuments offers an opportunity for truth-telling.

The statue which once stood in a prominent space in the city, now lies in a quite corner of a Bristol museum, surrounded by protest signs and covered in graffiti. Credit: NITV

During the global Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, statues of historical figures associated with racial injustice became the target of protesters.

Many were toppled, including a statue of the English slave trader Edward Colston, which was torn down and throw into the canal in Bristol, his birthplace.

Video footage of the incident went viral, sparking renewed debate over the memorialising of figures with such violent legacies.

Four years later, following consultation with the local community, the statue has been given a new home in a quiet corner of Bristol's M Shed Museum.

But this time, its display is very different.

Reframing the narrative

The Colston statue is displayed in a glass case behind a wall of recreated protest signs and a disclaimer. Credit: NITV

On its side, surrounded by recreated placards from the protest, the statue and its subject's life and legacy is presented in a new light and within a new context - it tells the truth.

To see the statue, visitors to the museum pass a warning sign and must make a conscious choice to view it behind the protest signs.

This is a far cry from its former display in the city, where it stood upon a raised plinth, a presentation demanding attention, and deference.

Could this work at home?

Back home there are 200 statues dedicated to colonial figures.

Just this month, the statue of a former Australian premier, William Crowther (known for removing the head from the body of an Aboriginal man and sending it to a London hospital) became the latest in a series of colonial figures to be cut down at the ankles and toppled from their plinths.

There have been four such statues toppled this year by activists, usually in the middle of the night.

While the Crowther statue was due to be officially removed, could statues toppled through acts of protest or activism, such as the Cook statue in Hyde Park on the eve of January 26, find a new home in museums alongside a more holistic truth-telling of their legacy?

Nathan "mudyi" Sentance, a Wiradjuri man and Head of First Nations collections at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, says it could be an approach to consider.

"One of my concerns ... [is] about ways we can use history to understand the past so we can make a better present and better future," he told NITV.

"I think statues do a poor job of that," Sentance said.

"Because without that context they solely serve a purpose of glorifying these figures and what these figures represent. I feel that people will walk past them and not really learn more or learn the nuance about a person.

"In a museum, I believe that context is much more accessible."

From the plinth to the museum

Mr Sentance stresses, though, the importance of community consultation.

"I think anywhere where there’s colonial monuments, I believe it’s an incredible thing that museums and the public should work together to investigate," he said.

"I love the outcome of the Bristol museum example but it might not work in all museums and all communities, depending on what the community wants.

When I say community, I’m specifying the community that’s most affected by what that statue represents and the most impacted; whoever's oppression that statue represents.

Community consultation on the fate of the Colston statue was central to its eventual display.

The We Are Bristol History Commission received 14,000 responses from people in the city, who shared their thoughts on how the statue should be displayed: 80 per cent of surveyed Bristolians agreed the statue should be placed in a museum.

Tim Cole is a professor of social history at the University of Bristol, with a particular interest in the politics of contested memory, who chaired the history commission.

"We wanted people to have their say but also listen to others," he said.

The biggest divide was generational, specifically in relation to the statue's toppling by protesters (despite the fact the city was also canvassing its removal).

Young people in the city were tired of the conversations falling short of action - whether it was removing the statue or installing a plaque next to it to provide more context about Colston's involvement in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.

Helen McConnell Simpson, Senior Curator of History at the M Shed, said her team developed it based on the feedback and as a result of the consultation process, engagement with community has improved.

Helen McConnell Simpson is the Senior Curator of History Today at the M Shed in Bristol. Credit: NITV

"We worked with a group of academics, activists, artists, young people and local historians to set the particular guidelines for what should be included in the display," she says.

Included at the back of the display is a timeline of Bristol's and Colston's history that visitors can add to, with each and every addition recorded by the museum.

Ms Simpson said the response from visitors to the M Shed has been positive.

"It's meant to be a space where people can learn from others' perspectives, reflect on their own experiences, reactions and engage in conversation with each other and I feel we achieved that," she said.

A history timeline where visitors can add their own knowledge and thoughts. The museum keeps a record of every entry. Credit: NITV

Community-first approach

Asher Craig, Chair of the Bristol Legacy Foundation (BLF) was Deputy Mayor when the Colston statue was toppled.

BLF aims to bring African-led reparatory justice to Bristol.

Ms Craig said BLF is now focused on ensuring consultation that it conducts is weighted to bring Black voices to the fore in cases such as this and in representing Black history in the city.

"What has been important to me particularly with setting up the BLF... in all of my visits to different cities where they were doing some kind of commemoration or event around this, it was like 'Spot the Black person,'" said Ms Craig.

"For us in Bristol, we're turning it on its head. We're in charge. We're going to tell those who have the power and the money."

Since the city decided to abolish the mayoral system, the BLF has been handed the responsibility of deciding what happens with the remaining plinth where the statue stood.

Ms Craig said it will be the Black community at the centre of that decision.

The argument of 'erasing history'

Critics of the statue topplings have accused protesters of an erasure of history, but Sentance says when it comes to colonial statues standing on Aboriginal land, its just the opposite.

"There is a history that is embedded in the land," he said.

"You may be tearing down trees that have centuries of knowledge or stories [attached] to them for a statue that tells a small story, so that in itself is erasing history."

Mr Sentance said statues, in their current form, are one of the worst ways to learn about history and the truth.

"Famously, the Cook statue in Hyde Park says he discovered Australia," he said.

"Mob have been here since time immemorial, at least tens of thousands of years, so that's an inaccurate statement.

"It can be argued that statues erase history. They're not really history tellers."