Global Justice Project
Imperialism and Power: Traces of African Colonialism within Scottish Public Spaces
Within this body of work, I continued my line of research into Scottish monuments relating to imperialism and colonialism.
The historical monuments in and around Edinburgh attract tourists from all around the world. Edinburgh’s unique architecture and impressive landmarks all in turn relate to colonialism due to their construction. These buildings and monuments were designed by notable architects but the physical construction may have been by slaves, often to celebrate the lives of those involved in slavery or funded by industries profiting from slavery. Thereby, colonialism is found throughout Edinburgh and tourists come to view it every year. This series of images adopt the view of the tourist. The new culture of social media and the ability to instantly take photos enables the tourist to document all aspects of their excursions. However, the instantaneous nature of taking photos enables the tourist to move on rapidly, not truly looking at the monument or finding out more about its context.
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By studying the movements and activities of the tourists, I imitated the style of photos that the average tourists took, focusing on the same view point and composition. The aim of the series is to present the historical monuments in a way that tourists may present them on their phone, with the associated history unknown and disregarded – much as slavery itself was disregarded.