The above cover picture is Jen Reid at the Black Lives Matter march in Bristol on 7th June 2020 taken by myself.
Hours before Jen stood on the plinth, the statue of Edward Colston was torn down by black lives matter activists in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. While this event made international news and was shrouded in controversy, this moment became a powerful symbol of redemption, hope and the power of activism in Bristol. As a result, artists memorialised this instant, welding it into a statue and then featuring it in painted murals around the city.
If history is made up of stories, it’s important for us to think critically about what version of history we are collectively told. It seems salient to me that while the memory of Colston has been kept alive for hundreds of years through named buildings, streets, and statues - the thousands of people that died as a result of his involvement in the slave trade remain nameless.
If history informs the present, and the present informs the future - which stories are important to tell now?
Anthonell Peccoo hours after finding out he won his right to remain in the UK after a 7-year long battle with the British Government.
Brandon Hill, Bristol. 5th April 2022.
Anthonell Peccoo
A few months ago I was more or less done with this earth. I was ready to just not be on this planet anymore or be in existence. I was just in such a pressured state that I didn’t feel the urge to want to do anything for anyone anymore. I do so much, why should I do anything else? I kind of thought. But that’s just not the way to live, and that’s too easy. And never have I done anything easy. People would obviously try and reassure me things would get better but that never really helped. I came to the realisation that I needed to stop thinking this way. Thinking you were never built this way, you weren’t born this way. Things are hard but things are harder for other people. I’m not in Ukraine, I haven’t gone through being bombed. I live in such a sheltered state and things could be worse. I’m able-bodied, and I’m going to take myself off this earth because things have gotten hard? I’ve been to prison, and I went through such a hard stage and the reason why I was able to get through prison is because I was like ‘this won’t last that long, this won’t last forever’. So just like how this is hard now, it won’t last forever. This is what I would tell other people, like whatever you’re going through, however hard it is - it’s all temporary.
“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
— Aaron Siskind
