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How Australian artists are reinterpreting colonial sculptures

Artist intervention, truth telling, and public discussion is a step in the right direction to shed light on colonialist monuments.

18 Nov 2021

Celina Lei

Visual Arts

Do you give much thought to the statues in our public spaces? Video still from Jillian Mundy’s Something Missing.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following may contain references and names of deceased persons.

In 2020 we saw colonial statues around the globe being graffitied, toppled and destroyed in anger towards the systematic structures of violence that lingered after colonial rule. The statues are seen as glorifications of White supremacy and blatant endorsement of a history of violence in our public squares and parks.

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Celina Lei

Celina Lei is an arts writer and editor at ArtsHub. She acquired her M.A in Art, Law and Business in New York with a B.A. in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked across global art hubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York in both the commercial art sector and art criticism. She took part in drafting NAVA’s revised Code of Practice - Art Fairs and was the project manager of ArtsHub’s diverse writers initiative, Amplify Collective. Celina is based in Naarm/Melbourne.