A new piece of contemporary art has appeared on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, and reinterprets a famous photograph of a Baptist preacher and a European missionary.
The resin sculpture by Samson Kambalu, shows the Baptist preacher, John Chilembwe wearing a hat, defying the colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people, and is almost twice the size of the European missionary John Chorley.
This reverses a classic artistic style that, while not used in this photo, often places the dominant figure in an elevated position to highlight their superior status. The photograph was taken in 1914 at the opening of Chilembwe’s new church in Malawi (then known as Nyasaland); the two men had first met in 1899 and had become close friends.
John Chilembwe was a Baptist pastor and educator who led an uprising in 1915 against British colonial rule in Nyasaland triggered by the mistreatment of refugees from Mozambique and the conscription to fight German troops during WWI. He was killed and his church destroyed by the colonial police. Though his rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, Malawi, which gained independence in 1964, celebrates John Chilembwe Day on 15th January and the uprising is viewed as the beginning of the Malawi independence struggle.
The artist, Samson Kambalu, was born in 1975 in Malawi, and now lives and works in Oxford where he is Associate Professor of Fine Art and a lifelong fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford University.
This is the 14th commission for the fourth plinth since the programme of artworks began in 1998.
The sculpture was made in Deptford, and will be on the Fourth Plinth until September 2024.
The programme was initiated in 1998 by the RSA with the support of the Cass Sculpture Foundation. In 1999 responsibility for Trafalgar Square was transferred to the Mayor of London and the Fourth Plinth Programme is now led by the Mayor’s Culture Team, under the guidance of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group.
