POLICY AND PRACTICE - How should we deal with statues of racists and what should we do in our public space instead?

Last summer, we saw a statue of Bristol slave trader, Edward Colston, thrown in the harbour by Black Lives Matters protesters. Other statues of racist, colonial or controversial figures have also been taken down or been the sites of protests and University and other buildings have been renamed. A conversation has started to take place about how we reckon with the past, how we deal with the inheritance of public art and statues that we have, and how we make use of our public spaces and art for commemoration and historical understanding in light of what we need in the present.