Anonymous artist says sales proceeds will go to the four people accused of Edward Colston statue damage ‘so they can go for a pint’
Banksy says he has made T-shirts that he will be selling to support four people facing trial accused of criminal damage over the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston.
The anonymous artist posted on Instagram pictures of limited-edition grey souvenir T-shirts, which will go on sale on Saturday in Bristol.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor paints over original work, which was created for Stephen Merchant’s TV series The Outlaws
A piece of art created by Banksy was painted over by Hollywood actor Christopher Walken in the final episode of BBC series The Outlaws.
The six-part comedy-drama, which Stephen Merchant co-created with US writer and producer Elgin James, and also directed, follows a group of misfits renovating a derelict community centre in Bristol, as part of community service for crimes they have committed.
Continue reading...She used to worry about ‘not making enough to pay the rent’. But with a solo show, a commission to make UK’s first Windrush monument and an OBE, the artist has stepped out of the shadows
Veronica Ryan’s handbag is always heavy. The British sculptor has been a collector since childhood, and her bag is her toolbox, her magpie’s nest, her anchor for a life lived in many places. It’s also fertile ground. Ryan’s mother once caught a glimpse of a date stone she was attempting to germinate in there. “You’re not going to get dates to grow here,” she said, referring to Britain and its climate. “I’m just really excited to see if I can,” replied Ryan. And she did.
Much like the seed, Ryan too is flourishing. For years, she worked in the art world’s shadows, using whatever materials she could find and often “not really making enough money to pay the rent”. But in 2018, aged 62, she won the Freelands award, which puts £100,000 towards showcasing a mid-career female artist yet to receive the recognition she deserves. The artist gets £25,000 and the gallery the remainder.
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...Mark Runacres says claim officers had bones broken at ‘kill the bill’ event were ‘hugely regrettable’
A police commander has accepted that his force was too slow to correct a false claim that two officers had suffered broken bones during clashes with “kill the bill” protesters in Bristol.
Supt Mark Runacres, the Bristol area commander, also said he regretted that demonstrators had been injured during a subsequent night of violence when police with riot shields, dogs and horses dispersed them.
Continue reading...PM condemns violence at latest protest against police, crime, sentencing and courts bill
Boris Johnson has condemned violent scenes in Bristol as “disgraceful”, after a protest against a new policing bill on Friday night resulted in clashes between demonstrators and police.
The protest was against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which would give police greater powers to restrict protests, and initially attracted around 300 people before the crowd swelled to more than 1,000.
Continue reading...Several rows of police were standing between the demonstrators and Bridewell station
A crowd of people gathered in Bristol on Friday evening for a third “kill the bill” demonstration within a week.
Hundreds have sat down in the street near Bridewell police station, the focus of rioting on Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Continue reading...Bristol's mayor, Marvin Rees, has said violence that broke out during demonstrations in the city against the government's anti-protest bill was counterproductive and may be used as evidence of why the legislation is necessary.
Rees said the perpetrators were 'living out their fantasies of being revolutionaries' and had made no contribution to furthering justice for marginalised communities.
He added: 'It goes against everything we have been doing in the city these recent years to build partnership and collective action'
Appeal court adds six years to prison term of Andy Anokye, 33, who performed under the name Solo 45
A man who held four women against their will and repeatedly raped them has had his sentence increased by the court of appeal.
Victims of Andy Anokye, 33, who performed as a grime artist under the stage name Solo 45, told how he beat and threatened them with weapons, held a cloth with bleach over their faces and waterboarded them, recording much of the abuse on his mobile phone.
Continue reading...Stencil mural unveiled on side of house shows woman sneezing out her false teeth
Banksy has confirmed he is behind an artwork showing an older woman sneezing out her false teeth which has appeared on a house in Bristol.
The stencil mural entitled “Aachoo!!”, on the side of a semidetached house in Totterdown, had been covered up before its unveiling on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Family of Alexandra Greenway say she was passed ‘pillar to post’ and not given psychiatric support
The family of a transgender woman who was found dead at her flat in Bristol have said at her inquest that she was passed from “pillar to post” in her efforts to seek help for her mental illness.
Alexandra Greenway’s relatives told the inquest the 23-year-old recruitment consultant did not receive the psychiatric support she required before her death on 11 May last year.
Continue reading...Music venue drops association with slave trader and will be known as Bristol Beacon
A new name has been announced for the Bristol venue Colston Hall following decades of protests and boycotts over its association with the slave trade.
Colston Hall, which was named after the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston, will from now on be known as Bristol Beacon following a public consultation.
Continue reading...Britain’s cyclists take matters into their own hands as criminals cash in on post-lockdown popularity of cycling
It’s the buzz he gets from reuniting the cyclists of Cambridge with their stolen bikes that has turned Omar Terywall into a self-proclaimed “vigilante”. He said: “You get really hooked on it when you start seeing major progress – and, well, it’s just nice helping people really, isn’t it?”
Like others across the country, from Portsmouth to Glasgow, Terywall runs a local Facebook group where Cambridge cyclists share details of their stolen bikes in the hope they will be spotted. Well-regarded by local police, Terywall happily spends hours each day hunting down stolen bikes via online advertisements and local tip-offs.
Continue reading...Director general admits mistake following 18,000 complaints
The BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, has apologised after the N-word was used in a TV news broadcast, following mass complaints and the resignation of one of the corporation’s radio DJs.
“Every organisation should be able to acknowledge when it has made a mistake. We made one here,” Hall said in an email to all BBC staff.
Continue reading...Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman says he can no longer work for broadcaster after ‘slap in the face’
A BBC radio presenter has quit his job after the corporation defended its decision to broadcast the N-word in a television news broadcast.
Radio 1Xtra presenter Sideman said he no longer felt comfortable working for the national broadcaster after it stuck by the decision to broadcast the language in a report on a racially motivated hit-and-run attack.
Continue reading...A Black Lives Matter protester, Jen Reid, says she 'shed a tear' when she saw a sculpture of her replace that of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol on Wednesday.
The artist Marc Quinn had the new statue installed without council permission. It replicates a photograph of Reid with her fist raised taken after the statue of Colston, a 17th-century merchant, was toppled by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in June.
Arriving in two lorries before 5am, a team of 10 people worked quickly to install the figure of Reid, who said she had been secretly working with Quinn on the idea for weeks
Continue reading...Exclusive: Artist Marc Quinn leads secret mission to install resin-and-steel figure of Jen Reid at site of toppled Bristol slave trader
The statue of slave trader Edward Colston was replaced in Bristol on Wednesday morning – with a sculpture of one of the protesters whose anger brought him down.
The figure of Jen Reid, who was photographed standing on the plinth with her fist raised after the 17th century merchant was toppled by Black Lives Matter demonstrators last month, was erected at dawn by a team directed by the artist Marc Quinn.
Continue reading...Avon and Somerset police say they have no choice but try to trace individuals due to criminal damage
Detectives have released images of 15 people they want to trace over the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol in which the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into the harbour.
Avon and Somerset police published the images of the men and women, arguing that in law, a crime – criminal damage – had been committed and it had no choice but to investigate. The force also said it had consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service about its investigation.
Continue reading...Bristol man sees official record of his age as five years older than he says as theft of his identity
A young man who was given permission to stay in the UK after fleeing Gaza has been on hunger strike for more than 90 days in protest at what he sees as the “theft” of his true identity on his official records.
The man, who has learning disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder, says he was wrongly assessed as being five years older than he is when he arrived in the UK. He regards his date of birth as a crucial part of his identity and a vital link to his late parents.
Continue reading...Few imperial icons, including Churchill, will escape the need to reappraise Britain’s past
The toppling of slaver Edward Colston’s statue has electrified a longer term – and already deeply polarised – debate among British historians and academics, with some celebrating a “moment of history” as others warned of dark consequences for society.
Inaction over figures such as Colston had bred anger that would be felt “all over Britain”, said Andrea Livesey, a historian specialising in the study of slavery and its legacies and who described the events in Bristol as “wholly justified”.
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