The recent (2015, to mark 600th anniversary of Magna Carta) installation on a water meadow by the Thames at Runnymede, created by sculptor Hew Locke features a whole range of less well-commemorated events and individuals from around the world, set in low relief bronze on the upright faces, front and back of 12 chairs.
There is a leaflet to identify them and a website www.artatrunnymede.com
The leaflet says 'Please do sit on and touch the artwork... The chairs appear to be awaiting a gathering, discussion or debate of some kind: an open invitation to the artist for the audience to sit, to reflect and to discuss the implications of the histories and issues depicted'. these are: Lillie Lenton, Suffragette; UN Convention on the rights of the Child, initiated in 1923 by Eglantyne Jebb; the Exxon Valdez oil pollution, Alaska 1989; Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol; Magna Carta clause 39 on trial by jury; Cornelia Sorabji, lawyer and women's advocate; UK Blind Persons Act 1920; Amerindian land rights; Phyllis Wheatley and Mary Prince; Emancipation of the Serfs, Russia, 1861; Mahatma Gandhi; Harvey Milk; citizen interventions to stop shredding of Stasi files, 1989; Nelson Mandela; Tim Berners Lee's call for internet free use; memorials to the 'Disappeared'; the Golden Rule of do as you would be done by; maritime refugee rights; Confucian principles of justice, ritual and humaneness; aboriginal Australian land rights; ancient Egyptian symbols of truth and justice; the murder of 133 enslaved Africans on the Zong ship 1781; Aung San Su Kyi's house in Burma; the legendary Chinese creature xiezhi, symbol of justice.
Too much information, maybe. But they looked splendid and intriguing in the March sun.
The leaflet says 'Please do sit on and touch the artwork... The chairs appear to be awaiting a gathering, discussion or debate of some kind: an open invitation to the artist for the audience to sit, to reflect and to discuss the implications of the histories and issues depicted'. these are: Lillie Lenton, Suffragette; UN Convention on the rights of the Child, initiated in 1923 by Eglantyne Jebb; the Exxon Valdez oil pollution, Alaska 1989; Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol; Magna Carta clause 39 on trial by jury; Cornelia Sorabji, lawyer and women's advocate; UK Blind Persons Act 1920; Amerindian land rights; Phyllis Wheatley and Mary Prince; Emancipation of the Serfs, Russia, 1861; Mahatma Gandhi; Harvey Milk; citizen interventions to stop shredding of Stasi files, 1989; Nelson Mandela; Tim Berners Lee's call for internet free use; memorials to the 'Disappeared'; the Golden Rule of do as you would be done by; maritime refugee rights; Confucian principles of justice, ritual and humaneness; aboriginal Australian land rights; ancient Egyptian symbols of truth and justice; the murder of 133 enslaved Africans on the Zong ship 1781; Aung San Su Kyi's house in Burma; the legendary Chinese creature xiezhi, symbol of justice.
Too much information, maybe. But they looked splendid and intriguing in the March sun.
Nearby are a couple of American memorials, one celebrating the Charter itself as the origin of western democracy [?], one memorialising JFK. Atop the hill behind, a major WW2 portico and tower commemorates those from British and Commonwealth air forces who died on active service.
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