The statue of Queen Victoria, in the High Court compound has been vandalised by unknown persons. Some reportedly doused the statue with red paint.

Commissioned in 1887 to mark the Golden Jubilee, this statue was unveiled in 1894 outside the law courts in Georgetown, Guyana. More than half a century later, in 1954, the statue was dynamited in an act of anti-colonial protest, and its head and left hand were blown off. Guyana achieved independence in 1966 and became a “Co-operative Republic” in 1970.

To mark the formation of the republic, the statue of Victoria was removed to Georgetown’s botanical gardens. However, in 1990, the statue was restored and re-erected in front of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Georgetown. The British artist Hew Locke, who was raised in Guyana, recalls the “shock” when the statue was returned to its original location.

Locke’s large painted photograph of the statue, which he describes as “mindful vandalism,” recalls attacks on statuary; however, rather than destruction, Locke is concerned with transformation.

(Delano Williams photo)