What are three decrepit beasts doing washed up on Dover sands? Sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor reveals why The Pride of Brexit protests the ‘most unpatriotic event’ Britain has ever seen
British lions aren’t supposed to look like this. They’re meant to be fierce, mighty and indomitable, lords of all they survey. But the three creatures here on Dover Beach look sick, emaciated and exhausted. They seem to be crawling to their deaths.
These sculptures were recently installed beneath the White Cliffs by Jason deCaires Taylor, who calls them The Pride of Brexit. “They convey,” says the British artist, “the sense of profound loss many of us remainers feel.” His installation is meant to be “a monument to one of the most unpatriotic events Britain has ever seen”.
Why lions? Because they are “a symbol in our heraldry, representing the might of the nation”. And why this shoreline? “The White Cliffs are quintessentially British. Vera Lynn, the second world war. But our Pride is washed up on the Brexit tide.” But there’s one other reason: it was in Dover, Britain’s gateway to Europe, that Taylor was born in 1974.
There are more of his sculpted lions, also in their death throes, in London. Across the Thames from Parliament, each sad, slouching beast has been tagged with Brexit slogans: “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, “BREXIT MEANS BREXIT” , “ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE”, “GET IT DONE”. The slogans, says Taylor, were “devised to divide and conquer us. The sculptures are disfigured by graffiti, their ill health clearly contrasted with the majesty of Parliament – an institution trashed by the very forces that advocate ‘taking back control’.”
https://www.theguardian.com/artandde...taylor-protest
