THE EMPTY PLINTH West India Quay, London – May 2021

a counter-commemorative proposal engaging with colonial legacy

This speculative project responded to the public-supported removal of the statue of slave owner and merchant Robert Milligan from its plinth alongside West India Quay.

Engaging with the vacant plinth as a charged site of absence, a large-scale mural installation of Milligan being ousted was proposed as being positioned adjacent to the plinth. Rather than replacing the monument, the proposal treated absence itself as an active form.

Situated within the London Docklands shaped by colonial extraction and enslavement, the work reflects on how public monuments might function as spaces of counter-memorial and critique rather than reverence.