The Art of Michael Visocchi and Lemn Sissay in Fen Court: London #19

Tucked away in Fen Court is this remarkable sculpture, which is explained, with the poem, in the interpretation plaque below.

 

 

 

 

'GILT OF CAIN

By

Michael Visocchi & Lemn Sissay

 

This powerful sculpture was unveiled by the Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu on 4th September 2008. The sculpture commemorates the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which began the process of the emancipation of slaves throughout the British Empire.

 

Fen Court is the site of a churchyard formerly of St Gabriel's Fenchurch St and now in the Parish of St Edmond the King and St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard St. The latter had a strong historical connection with the abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Rev John Newton, a slave-trader turned preacher and abolitionist, was rector of St Mary Woolnoth from 1780 – 1807. Newton worked closely alongside the famous abolitionist William Wilberforce.

 

The granite sculpture is composed of a group of columns surrounding a podium. The podium calls to mind an ecclesiastical pulpit or slave auctioneer's stance, whilst the columns evoke stems of sugar can and are positioned to suggest an anonymous crowd or congregation gathered to listen to a speaker.

 

The artwork is the result of a collaboratin between the sculptor Michael Visocchi and poet Lemn Sissay. Extracts from Lemn Sissay's poem, 'Gilt of Cain', are engraved into the granite. The poem skilfully weaves the cold language of the City's stock exchange trading floor with biblical Old Testament references.

 

HERE IS THE ASK PRICE ON THE CLOSED POSITION,
HISTORY IS NO INHERENT ACQUISTION
FOR HERE THE TECHNICAL CORRECTION UPON THE ACT,
A MERGER OF TRUTH AND IN ACTUAL FACT,
ON THE SPOT, ON THE MONEY – THE SPREAD.
THE DEALER LIED WHEN THE DEALER SAID
THE BULL WAS CHARGING THE BEAR WAS DEAD,
THE MARKET MUST CALCULATE PER CAPITA, NOT HEAD.

 

AND GREAT TRADERS ACTING IN CONCERT, ARMS RISE
AS THE ACTUALS FROUGHT ON THE SEA OF FRANCHISE
THROWN OVERBOARD INTO THE EXCHANGE TO DROWN
IN DISTRESSED BROKERS DISCONSOLATE FROWN.
IN ACCOUNTING LIQUIDITY IS A MOUNTING MORBIDITY
BUT RAISING THE ARMS WITH SUCH RIGIND RAPIDITY,
OH THE REAPING THE RAPING RAPACIOUS FLUIDITY.
THE VIOLENCE THE VICIOUS AND VEXED VOLATILITY.

 

THE ROARING TRADE FLOOR RISES ABOVE CRASHING WAVES:
THE TRADER BUYS SHIPS, BENEATH THE SLAVES.
SWAY MACHETE BACK, SWAY MACHETE AGAIN
CUT BACK THE SUGAR RUSH, CAIN.
THE WHIPSAW IT'S ALL AND THE WHIP SAW IT ALL
THE RISING MARKET AND THE CARGO FALL
WHO'LL ENTER "JERUSALEM" MAKE THE MARGIN CALL FOR ABEL?
WHO WILL KICK OVER THE STALL AND TURN THE TABLE?

 

CAIN GATHERS CAIN AS GILT-GIFT TO HIS LAND
BUT WHOSE SWORD OF TRUTH SHALL NOT SLEEP IN HAND?
WHO SHALL UNLOCK THE STOCKS AND SHARE?
BREAK THE BINDS THE BOOND UNBOUND – LAY BARE
THE TRUTH. CASH FLOW RUNS DEEP BUT SPIRIT DEEPER
YOU ASK AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?
I ANSWER BY NATURE BY SPIRIT BY RIGHTFUL LAWS
MY NAME, MY BROTHER, WILBERFORCE.

 

This project was initiated by British Black Heritage and the Parish of St Mary Woolnoth and was commissioned by the City of London Corporation in partnership with the British Land Company.'

 

ADDENDUM: Lemn Sissay has now won the vote for Chancellor of the University of Manchester. Phew! I'm very pleased to say he easily beat the horrendous Peter Mandelson: we don't want dinosaurs, especially hypocrites like the architect of New Labour!

 

Links to my other posts of Lemn Sissay public poems are given below:

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Lemn Sissay's Poetry in Shudehill, Manchester
Hardys Well and Lemn Sissay's Poem

Lemn Sissay's 'Flags', Tib Street, Manchester
Lemn Sissay's 'RAIN'

William Wilberforce and Hull

This wall is in Nelson Mandela Gardens by the University of Hull's Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), just off Hull High Street (actually now quite a distance removed from the city center), which bears the names of a number of people variously associated with opposition to the slave trade and/or who have make significant steps toward emancipation in general. From left to right in descending order: Steve Biko, Aung San Soo Kyi, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King,  Nelson Mandela, Raoul Wallenberg,  Rosa Parks, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sylvia Pankhurst, Edmund Morel, Mahatma Gandhi, José Martí, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass,  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Granville Sharp, Tom Paine.

William Wilberforce, M.P. and campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade, was born in this house opposite WISE on High Street, Hull in 1759.

The base of the statue in the front garden reads:

'WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

BORN IN HULL 24TH AUGUST, 1759

DIED IN LONDON 29TH JULY, 1833

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR HULL

FROM 1780 TO 1784

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR YORKSHIRE

FROM 1784 TO 1812

---------------------------------

ENGLAND OWES TO HIM THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS.

THE WORLD OWES TO HIM THE REFORMATION OF SLAVERY'

The towering Wilberforce Monument stands in front of Hull College of Further Education off Wilberforce Drive and slightly to the east of Queen's Gardens.

A close-up of the statue of Wilberforce at the top of the monument.

The first stone of the monument was laid on the same day as the abolition of slavery in 1834, one year after the death of William Wilberforce.