Colonial pasts & possible futures: a case study of the Louis de Geer monument
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This thesis is critically investigating
Swedish colonial heritage in forms of
monuments and statues in public spaces.
This thesis suggests that public spaces with
colonial heritage should be decolonized
and investigates how this is possible
through the medium of architecture.
The aim of this thesis is to show how
Swedish colonial heritage can exist
unchallenged in a public space and explore
how it could be handled in a different way.
This is researched with literature studies
of Swedish colonialism, postcolonialism
and decolonization projects. Together with
qualitative interviews with local citizens
and institutions this creates the theoretical
framework and background.
The theoretical framework is applied
to a case study of the monument of the
former slave trader Louis de Geer, at the
square Gamla Torget in Norrköping. The
monument brought attention when the
story of Sweden’s participation in the
transatlantic slave trade became more
known to the public, especially after a local
art exhibition in 2018 and the George Floyd
(BLM) protests in 2020.
The theoretical framework of Sweden’s
colonial history and postcolonial
theory shows a strong connection with
colonialism and ideas of races and
racism. It also shows how Sweden have
participated in colonialism, and therefore
how Sweden also is responsible for
inherited racial injustices. The reference
examples and postcolonial theory does
not give an unequivocal answer to how a
public space is decolonized, rather that it
is strongly dependent on context and that
there are many strategies to use.
Through five implementation strategies,
explorations on how the monument
could be approached are developed. The
implementations are exploring acceptance,
communication, addition, transformation,
and subtraction for the specific case. The
implementations are then discussed
in connection to postcolonial theory,
reference projects and local citizens
opinions, aiming for continuing the
discussion on colonial heritage in public
spaces.
This thesis shows that there are several
alternatives and combinations in between
the extremes of doing nothing and total
removal which can inspire for a broader
discussion or contribute to other ideas and
solutions.
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Colonial heritage, decolonization, postcolonial studies, monument, Norrköping