Rudy Loewe’s sculpture 'The Reckoning’ is currently on display at the Baltic Triangle Plinth on Jamaica Street.
This large-scale installation by Rudy Loewe is based on the artist’s painting ‘February 1970, Trinidad #1’, which depicts Moko Jumbie (a stilt walker) and other Carnival mas players (participants who wear masquerade costumes and march in the parade) coming to the aid of the people at a moment of Black Power revolution in Trinidad and Tobago.
The work confronts Britain’s colonial legacy, which reverberates into our present, and harnesses the natural elements of light and wind to playfully demand attention, casting shadows on this history and the reckoning that is yet to happen.
Siting ‘The Reckoning’ on Jamaica Street facilitates a direct conversation between the artwork and Liverpool’s prominent role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Britain’s colonisation of islands in the Caribbean. Jamaica Street has existed here since as early as the time of The Slave Trade Act of 1807, when the street dissected rows of slum housing from Parliament Street to Brick Street. It wasn’t until around 1870 that Jamaica Street was extended to Park Lane, forming what we now know as the Baltic Triangle. The extending of Jamaica Street coincided with the demolition of slum housing to make way for the warehouses, mills and commercial buildings we see today.
The work also engages with the Sailors’ Home Gateway, located on Paradise Street, a freestanding monument to the since demolished Liverpool Sailors’ Home.
Originally produced for Liverpool Biennial 2023, with support from Liverpool ONE
