It’s a goat. On a pile of boxes. In Spitalfields, London

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.

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