The empty plinth that once supported the statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston looks set to become a stage for temporary artworks, if council chiefs and the mayor agree.
But the plinth will also see ‘periods of intentional emptiness and presence’, when nothing will be on it at all. The recommendations of the ‘We Are Bristol’ History Commission, which were revealed in early February, are being presented to the city council’s cabinet next week.
They will also include a recommendation that a second plaque - finally - is affixed to the plinth to explain who Colston really was and what happened to the statue of him back in 2020. The History Commission’s report recommends keeping Colston’s statue in a museum, to help tell the story of Bristol’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, and the 100 years of opposition to the late Victorian ‘Cult of Colston’ created by the Society of Merchant Venturers, which saw schools, roads, pubs, weirs and buildings named after him.
