We are still across the pond in London’s Trafalgar Square to meet “Lady in Blue”, a striking bronze sculpture by Harlem born artist Tschabalala Self, unveiled on the Fourth Plinth this September. Rather than honoring a historical figure or larger-than-life hero, “Lady in Blue” celebrates someone much more familiar: the everyday, modern woman making her way through the city. With her confident stride and unmistakable sense of purpose, she represents, as the artist describes her, “an everyday person much like the many who occupy the square daily,” who can now glimpse the statue on their daily commutes. Her vibrant blue dress immediately catches the passing eye, a reflection of the frenetic and vibrant energy of the city, while her accessories reference lapis lazuli, the rare and prized stone that has been used as a pigment in art for centuries.

There’s something particularly fitting about placing this woman in Trafalgar Square. She isn't there to be worshipped or remembered as a figure from the past. She is looking straight ahead; ambitious, self-assured, and ready for whatever comes next! In other words, “Lady in Blue” isn't just another statue frozen in history. She's all of us, and she has somewhere to be.

Trafalgar Square, one of London’s most visited landmarks, is marked by four plinths, upon which rests three permanent sculptures. For years an empty fourth plinth stood until Dame Prue Leith, then chair of the Royal Society of Arts suggested the plinth should host art work. After much debate, the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Programme was born, hosting contemporary sculptures on rotation. Recently, Samson Kambalu, a renowned contemporary artist and author who hails from Malawi and is based in Oxford won the opportunity to exhibit under the Fourth Plinth Programme, resulting in “Antelope.”

Based on a photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist, John Chilembwe, and European missionary, John Chorley, taken in 1914 at the opening Chilembwe’s new church in Nyasaland, now Malawi, “Antelope” commemorates the moment by restaging the photograph. Kambalu portrays Chilembwe larger than life upon the plinth as he keeps his hat on, in defiance of the colonial rule forbidding Africans from wearing hats in front of white people. Chorley maintains life-size, thereby elevating Chilembwe’s story and bringing awareness to the “hidden narratives of underrepresented peoples” and calling attention to “distortions in conventional narratives of the British empire.”