SAFEDI Yuen Fong Ling

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The Human Memorial - an exploration of alternative forms of public monument and memorial making, since Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and Rhodes Must Fall movements.

In the summer of 2020, I watched (over and over) the footage of BLM protesters tearing down the Colston Statue in Bristol. Amongst the chaotic scenes, the group were defined by what they did and where they positioned themselves. Some pulled the rope noosed around the statue, some chanted and encouraged the act, the majority recorded the event through their phones. However, when the statue fell, some seized onto the fallen monument, and one activist jubilantly jumped onto the empty plinth.

The aftermath of the statue’s removal led to artist Marc Quinn to temporarily occupy the space of the empty plinth with a statue created of the activist Jen Reid; a body co-opted by an established white male artist in a gesture that demonstrated his privilege. The subsequent protection and boarding up of statues and monuments linked to Britain’s colonial past created new temporary monoliths surrounded by protesters with their own placards in protest. The empty plinth has become a potent symbol of what has been, where we are now, and what could be. It poses many questions: what we do with these statues and monuments, remove them, re-plaque them, replace them?

Image 1

Yuen Fong Ling, "The Human Memorial" (2021), photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield. Workshop leaders: Yuen Fong Ling, Nathan Geering; participants: Samara Casewell, Marcus Smith, Rebecca Solomon, Darwin Taylor, and Sam Underwood Doherty; and special thanks to Picture Story Productions.


'The Human Memorial' centres around three performance/workshops, with invited performers exploring the empty plinth with three objectives in mind:

  1. A mobile empty plinth structure prompts responses through re-enactment, recreation, and play.
  2. The bodies of performers replace the structures of the empty plinth.
  3. As a result of the workshops, alternative, non-permanent monuments and memorials were presented in sites across Sheffield.

Each day was documented, with accompanying interviews and conversations captured during the workshops. These recordings expressed the personal accounts of participants' experiences of racism, the BLM movement, the monument and memorials debate, and a vision of what might be a more inclusive future society. 

Image 2

Yuen Fong Ling, "The Human Memorial" (2021), photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield. Workshop leaders: Yuen Fong Ling, Nathan Geering; participants: Samara Casewell, Marcus Smith, Rebecca Solomon, Darwin Taylor, and Sam Underwood Doherty; and special thanks to Picture Story Productions.


The research resulted in a 3-channel film made by Picture Story Productions (working title "The Empty Plinth"), that reveals what happens during the socially-engaged art production process. The films found new associations in the act of ‘construction’ and ‘making’ through participation and collective action. They acted as a counterpoint to conversations about ‘undoing’ and ‘dismantling’ myths, colonial histories and ideologies, through the representation of our own bodies and experiences, and their relationship to others in authority, in public spaces.

Image 3

Yuen Fong Ling, "The Human Memorial" (2021), photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield. Workshop leaders: Yuen Fong Ling, Nathan Geering; participants: Samara Casewell, Marcus Smith, Rebecca Solomon, Darwin Taylor, and Sam Underwood Doherty; and special thanks to Picture Story Productions.


Artist Quote: "The research enabled me to find a critical network of artists of colour, a community of practice that has been shaped by our experiences of inequality and racism, both personally and professionally. Surprisingly, making art as a socially-engaged artist can be solitary, and even more solitary when in meetings as the only person of colour. The production process has highlighted the value of sharing lived experience, and how important it is to have a support structure, in and outside of your working environment. I hope these support structures can be formed in all spaces, and if they are not quite there yet, then invest in them and build them up until they are autonomous and free."

Image 4

Yuen Fong Ling, "The Human Memorial" (2021), photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield. Workshop leaders: Yuen Fong Ling, Nathan Geering; participants: Samara Casewell, Marcus Smith, Rebecca Solomon, Darwin Taylor, and Sam Underwood Doherty; and special thanks to Picture Story Productions. 


Related to SAFEDI

This new research developed directly as a response to my work with the Sheffield City Council’s ‘Decolonising Street Names, Statues and Monuments Group’ including leads Rebecca Maddox (Head of Business Development - Culture), Andrew Skelton (Public Art Officer), and other representatives from Sheffield City Archives and Local Library Services, Sheffield Museums and Galleries, and Maintenance and Highways. Since joining the group in June 2020, I’ve acted as an EDI advisor to the group, guiding the research and reporting regarding mission, aims and objectives, relationship building, communications, supporting and embedding definitions, terminologies, and methods of equality, diversity and inclusion at all aspects of the process.

https://sheffield.citizenspace.com/place/sheffield-street-names-statues-and-museum-collecti/

This work also informs my Commissioner role as part of the Sheffield Race Equality Commission, led by Emeritus Professor Kevin Hilton, where I have supported the gathering and examination of evidence covering all aspects of civic life in Sheffield, focusing on the accounts of individuals, groups, communities, championing models of good practice, and highlighting historical, imbedded, structural race inequality within the city’s major institutions and organisations.

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/raceequalitycommission


The wider SAFEDI project

This project is one of six commissions as part of AHRC funded project SAFEDI (Social Art for Equality Diversity and Inclusion). SAFEDI is an AHRC fellowship led by Manchester Metropolitan University, Social Art Network, & Axis, working with social artists, marginalised communities and policy makers around the UK to rethink what inclusion in the arts means.

Find out more here >


Credits

Yuen Fong Ling, "The Human Memorial" (2021), photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield. Workshop leaders: Yuen Fong Ling, Nathan Geering; participants: Samara Casewell, Marcus Smith, Rebecca Solomon, Darwin Taylor, and Sam Underwood Doherty; and special thanks to Picture Story Productions.

The Human Memorial research and development is supported by SAFEDI, Sheffield Hallam University's Art, Design & Media Research Centre, and Sheffield City Council.


Image descriptions

Image 1
Five performers, one out of frame, stand on and to the side of an empty wooden plinth creating a carefully balanced configuration of bodies. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.

Image 2
Five performers, one out of frame, stand on and to the side of an empty wooden plinth recreating a moment for the BLM protest in Bristol, one figure is stood with a raised arm and clenched fist and another is lay on the flood and wrapped in rope. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.

Image 3
Five performers are stood on and to the side of an empty wooden plinth as if pulling one performer onto the platform, in a gesture of help and support. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.

Image 4
Five performers are stood on an empty wooden plinth forming a star formation of feet in different coloured socks. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.


External links

www.yuenfongling.com

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