RePresenting Bloomsbury

About RePresenting Bloomsbury

Investigating the lives and works of people commemorated and celebrated through statues and memorials in Camden.

RePresenting Bloomsbury was a pilot project to develop our approach to interpreting statues and memorials in the public realm. During 2023 we worked with subject specialists, artists and communities to explore and examine the lives and works of Virginia Woolf, Noor Inayat Khan and Bertrand Russell who have statues in Bloomsbury.

Camden has around 70 statues and memorials commemorating and celebrating individuals. These include statues, busts, memorials, public fountains and benches. These statues and memorials have often been in the public realm for many, sometimes hundreds of years. Many of them represent people who may have challenging histories, including some who may have expressed ideas that we would not find acceptable today.

From 2025 until 2028 Camden Council will be delivering a large project which will investigate and present information about more statues and memorials in the borough that commemorate individuals. The project will ensure that residents and visitors are able access accurate and balanced information about the lives, work and ideas of the people currently celebrated through public sculpture in Camden. This will include any discriminatory ideas or behaviours, as well as positive contributions to society. The project will ensure that our public memorials and the legacies of the individuals commemorated are presented through multiple, diverse perspectives, enabling complex and often challenging histories to be questioned and profiled for the first time.

Camden’s story is one of activism, radical thinking, music and creativity. People from many backgrounds have settled here and contributed significantly to society and to the borough’s unique identity. These diverse stories are not yet presented through Camden’s public art.

The work will enable us to better understand the impact of these individuals on society, and to make new meaningful connections between our diverse communities and Camden’s public realm.

As part of the RePresenting Bloomsbury project we produced a toolkit for interpreting statues and memorials in the public realm.