Fiona Banner | The Art Newspaper | by Louisa Buck
The government may be turning a blind eye to industrial fishing in the UK’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but it is quick to respond when an unwanted sculpture is deposited outside one of its Department Offices. Within hours of Fiona Banner and Greenpeace dumping her 1.5tn granite sculpture Full Stop Klang (2020) on the doorstep of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to protest against the government’s failure to stop illegal fishing in protected waters, the police had mustered the forces of Westminster Council to remove the work.
Ironically it was at almost exactly the same time as Banner’s other two Full Stop works were being craned onto the Greenpeace boat Esperanza over at Tower Bridge. There they began their journey to the North Sea to form part of a protective barrier at Dogger Bank. Klang, however, was hoisted rather less auspiciously onto a Council truck to be transported up the A12 to a facility in Dartford. Here it resides until its fate is decided.
“We hope to get the sculpture back” Banner tells The Art Newspaper, adding “perhaps your readers can suggest where it should go next?”