Engaging Black European Spaces and Postcolonial Dialogues through Public Art: Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, installed on the Fourth Plinth of London’s Trafalgar Square from May 24, 2010, to January 30, 2012, temporarily transformed a space dominated by the 19th-century monumental sculpture of Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain’s most famous naval hero. When installed in Trafalgar Square, Shonibare’s model ship in a bottle, with its sails made of factory-printed textiles associated with West African and African-European identities, contrasted dramatically with the bronze and stone that otherwise demarcate traditional sculpture. Shonibare’s sculpture served to activate public space by way of its references to global identities and African diasporic culture. Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship, this paper argues, inserted a black diasporic perspective into Trafalgar Square, offering a conspicuous challenge to the normative power that defines social and political space in Great Britain. The installation in Trafalgar Square was only temporary, however, and the work was later moved to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where it is on permanent display. This paper provides an investigation of the deeper historical references Shonibare made to the emergence of transnational identities in the 19th century and the continued negotiation of these identities today by considering the installation of Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle in relation to both sites.
Source: Open Cultural Studies
Author: Heather Shirey
Institution: University of St. Thomas - Minnesota
Language: English
Topic: Public Spaces through Art
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,187
OpenAlex ID: W2945842913