In Trafalgar Square

(for another pilgrimage)

I’m not here to see the lonely man on his column

The man who killed and maimed thousands

So britain could keep stealing the wealth of other countries in the world

And who himself ended up maimed and murdered.

I’ve come to see the faces of my siblings, my fellow outcasts

Whose life masks have been cast by an artist mortician

To honour the memory of her murdered friend.

& to celebrate the lives of those of us defying hatred and violence:

The hatred inside us and the hatred in the world.

And not just us, but the wider half of humanity

Women and life itself degraded and destroyed 

By the values embodied in the lonely man on top of the column,

And the angry orange man with his toupee, his bluster and his lies

And by the sleek and smooth suited men

Who make profits from poison and destruction and disease.

Not them. I don’t want to see them.

I want to see the beautiful humans on the plinth

My fellow warriors who don’t fight with guns and with missiles

But whose struggle and whose success

Is just to be in a world that placed all its resources

All its cultural power and strength

Into forcing us to deny our own existence and to disappear.

And so our triumph is to speak out, to flourish, to be happy.

We don’t win our victories by forcing our fellow humans

To suppress and deny their compassion and humanity

Our victories are won by being alive. 

By happiness…

And here we are, look at us,

Up there exposed to the rain and the wind,

Looking in, shining out, gloriously decaying

Me standing here with my sticks,

My sore ankles and my artificial knees, 

My heart held together by a plastic ring,

My dear heart kept beating by an electric box

Implanted under my skin.

And I look up with pride and celebration,

And I know the beauty in all of us decaying

And in the fierce defiance of us all being happily alive.

The artwork is called “Mil Veces Un Instante” (A Thousand Times An Instant) and it’s created by Teresa Margolles.

It’s made from the plaster casts of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people, and its form is inspired by the meso-american tradition of ‘tzompatli’ - a rack of skulls used to display the skulls of enemies.

You can read more about it here

What's on in the Fourth Plinth Now

and here

Queer Circle

and here

Every Face Tells A Story

Go and see it if you can.