Unveiling for slave-trade abolition memorial

A SCULPTURE commemorating the 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade designed by an Angus artist and produced by an Aberdeenshire company will be unveiled tomorrow in London by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The memorial’s podium represents an ecclesiastical pulpit, parliament and the auctioneers who managed the trade in human traffic – a symbol of the repressive practice and the powers which played a part in abolishing it.

It sits in the heart of London’s financial district, in a quiet courtyard close to where abolitionist founder William Wilberforce first heard the Rev John Newton’s powerful anti-slavery sermons in St Mary Woolnoth Church. A poem called the Guilt of Cain written by Lemn Sissay appears across it, weaving the language of the Stock Exchange with Old Testament biblical references.

Sculptor Michael Visocchi, 31, originally from Kirriemuir but who now lives in Edinburgh, said: “I began to feel the moral responsibility quite heavily when I received the commission and it took me a while to get over that.

“But then the idea just came to me. It represents a pulpit, an auctioneer’s stance and also the parliamentary stance. And the columns represent a crowd gathered around listening to a sermon, but also sugar barrels and African beads.

“When I was first commissioned I didn’t know what to make it out of, but I decided on granite because of the weight of the issue.

“Bon Accord Granite did a good job, because it was quite difficult engineering-wise to make.”

John Forbes, the director of the Foveran company, near Newburgh, said Mr Visocchi was a rising star.

“We were responsible for the manufacture and installation, but he designed it. He’s a terrific guy and very, very talented. He will go very far.”