Standing atop a stack of packing crates in Bishop’s Square in Spitalfields, is Kenny Hunter’s I Goat sculpture.
The winner of a £45,000 sculpture design competition, the thing looks like a fun and cheerful addition to the city landscape to my eyes, but the sculptor prefers to describe it in rather more high fallutin’ terms:
The goat stands as a symbol for the various waves of migration that have found sanctuary in Spitalfields and helped to shape it. The goat, as an image of persecution and sacrifice, reflects how each successive group of immigrants have faced their own combination of conflict, oppression and poverty, all eventually finding a new home in London. The crates on which it stands reference the market as well as the ongoing history of transience and human flux.
Yeah, whatever.
Anyway, the sculpture was erected in October 2010 and has a scheduled stay of 18 months. Don’t get drunk and try and ride the thing, y’hear.
Related posts:
Derelict shops, Toynbee Street, Spitalfields, London E1
A walk through Spitalfields and Brick Lane
Statues, sculptures and phone boxes in Berkeley Square, London
A statue made of soap: Duke of Cumberland erodes away in Cavendish Square, London
Intriguing Rainforest pavilion goes up in Bedford Square, central London
London Life: Piccadilly Art Market, Green Park
A look inside the Crypt Gallery in St Pancras: ShoShoShow sculpture exhibition
Greenwich photos, south London
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