The metal sculpture on Jacka Boulevard in St Kilda was sawn off at the ankles about 3.30am Thursday, with vandals also spray-painting “the colony will fall” on the statue’s granite plinth.
The metal sculpture on Jacka Boulevard in St Kilda was sawn off at the ankles about 3.30am Thursday, with vandals also spray-painting “the colony will fall” on the statue’s granite plinth.
Ordinarily I’m more in favour of taking down colonialist statues and putting them in a museum, but this will do just fine for today.
I think the whole thing as is (vandalised and all) should be put in a museum. History is not linear or static. We actively create and engage in history each day. Vandalising and pulling down these statues is not erasing history but rather contributing to it. If the statue gets cleaned and fixed then that is arguably an act of historical erasure.
They’re just helping to get it down off its plinth is all.