Installation of Sophie Ernst’s Silent Empress in Castrop Rauxel Square, Wakefield, 2012

https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-41-autumn-2017/opinion-hammad-nasar-british-indianness

“In Silent Empress 2012, a public commission
for Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield, the artist Sophie Ernst
attached a sound tag to an existing statue of Queen Victoria. The sound
was a monologue emanating from a megaphone temporarily positioned in
front of the statue’s face. Comprising quotes from the journals and
letters of Queen Victoria, and extracts from speeches and texts by past
prime ministers (Blair, Brown, Cameron, Churchill, Gladstone), it
gestured towards an apology for Britain’s colonial past. The
statue spoke for 30 minutes before Wakefield Council decided it was
‘disrespectful’ and needed to come down. This was unfortunate: we need
our statues to speak uncomfortable truths. In functioning democracies
the cultural sphere should be a profoundly unsafe space for sacred cows.”

from Hammad Nasar article “In order to be British we must acknowledge our ‘Indianness’”, Tate site September 15th 2017.