At the Trafalgar Square, there was this big monument that depicted a British ship with this bright multi-colored textile fabric sails inside a large scale glass bottle, high up on a stone pillar.
I thought it was easy to look at and it was charming aesthetically. We discussed it as a class, and the consensus was that it had to do with Britain's history as an imperialist country and how it carried away and bottled into its own culture remnants from the other cultures they've conquered. The idea was praised rather than condemned through the work.
If I had to design a monument for the Square, I'd like to see this large metal mound rising up, the mound forming into the torso and head and arms of a contemporary British soldier. Large chunks would be like taken out, creating large holes in the sculpture (much like how a broken wax cast looks). Running through the interior of the figure mound would be this giant poppy-red fabric. Id need to experiement with models, but the idea is that the wind should blow through the gaps of the sculpture, billowing the fabric like an interior flag. A tradition and remembrance within his being. But the holes represent a sadness and a hurt. I'm not sure how the public would react to that kind of image, war monuments are usually never satisfy everyone.
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