The Anchor, The Drum, The Ship (2022), a groundbreaking public artwork for Gladstone Park designed by the London-based artist Harun Morrison and garden designer Antonia Couling.

This is the first time in the UK’s history that a public artwork of this kind has been used to acknowledge the contested history of a green space. The permanent artwork will be unveiled on 14 October to coincide with Black History Month in October.

Gladstone Park is named after 19th-century Prime Minister Sir William Gladstone whose father was one of the biggest slave-owners in the Caribbean. Gladstone went from being a supporter of the compensation scheme to denouncing slavery and cutting ties with his father.

Investigating contested history has become a vital undertaking in recent years. Explaining how and why links to the slave trade and British colonialism might have allowed a person who has been venerated with a statue, mon-ument or place or street name to rise to prominence in the first place sheds light on a dark history that can no longer be left untold.

The artwork:

The constellation of planted shapes that make up The Anchor, The Drum, The Ship (2022) offers a set of triangulation points to create conversation around Black migration, belonging, communication, music and collective renewal. The work is spatially in dialogue with the remnants of Dollis Hill House, a former property that regularly received Prime Minister William Gladstone.

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