Graffiti condemning the statue of the slaver Robert Geffrye has appeared outside the Museum of the Home. The hands of the statue have been spray-painted blood-red.
The Haggerston-based museum has faced heavy criticism since July for not addressing the public demand to remove the statue.
The graffiti appeared over the weekend and reads,“the Blood on Geffrye’s hands is the blood of our Ancestors”.
The museum has faced criticism after launching a consultation with the community, only to ignore the result. Out of 2,187 responses to the museum’s survey, 71% called for the removal of the statue.
A summary of the survey showed that many responders felt that the statue sends the message that “someone involved in slave trade should be glorified.”
Sasha Simic, a spokesperson for Hackney Stand Up To Racism, the group that initiated and leads the #GeffryeMustFall campaign said that the graffiti “is a very powerful indication of how people feel about this.”
Simic also commented that it seemed the museum’s strategy was “treading water until the whole thing has passed. I don’t think that is going to happen … this is going to go on until they take it down.”
Hackney Stand Up To Racism is planning another demonstration against the Museum of the Home’s Geffrye statue at 6 pm on Friday 30 October.
When asked about the status of the statue, Nancy Loader, the Press and Communications Manager for the Museum of the Home, said that “The Board and Museum team are continuing to explore a number of options for the statue that are curatorially best suited to the Museum and our communities.” The graffiti has been reported to the police.
Earlier this month museum director Sonia Solicari told a group of MPs that the Museum of the Home felt pressured by a letter from Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to keep the statue up against the community’s wishes because the museum feared for cuts to their funding.
The letter stated that “as publicly funded bodies, you should not be taking actions motivated by activism or politics.”
