At the end of the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace stands the Victoria Memorial designed in 1901 by the English sculptor Sir Thomas Brock. Dedicated in 1911 and completed in 1924, the Memorial is a celebration of the British Empire and Britain’s naval prowess under Queen Victoria, including mermaids and mermen.
Filling the immense Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, American artist Kate Walker has recreated her own different version of the Victoria Memorial in ‘Fons Americanus’, made from recyclable and reusable materials, exploring the interconnected histories of Europe, America and Africa using water (albeit shark-infested) as a theme that links to the intercontinental 19th century slave trade and to the lives of those many individuals who crossed the ocean as slaves, reflected in the different individuals in the main sculpture and in the shell in front of it.