Ethnicity, Gender, and Invisibility

Despite political rhetoric about British ‘togetherness’ in fighting off the COVID-19 virus, its impacts were highly uneven. While there are numerous aspects of identity that could be considered in this regard, the first half of this chapter focuses particularly on ethnicity in light of the clear evidence that people of black or Asian descent faced higher mortality rates during the pandemic. Against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter protests, the UK Government appears to have been unwilling to consider the links between death rates and issues of systemic racism. Memorial sites that have developed since 2020 also generally fail to engage with this, though the chapter does give attention to a billboard artwork by Henny Beaumont that was displayed in Newington Green. The second half of the chapter turns to issues of gender, though does so more in reference to processes of memorialisation. The evidence is presented for concluding that women are overrepresented in the grassroots labour of memorialisation while men are more often chosen to design memorials funded by major public organisations. Alongside prompting questions about the representation of women among professional public art designers, this imbalance also prompts critical questions about how men and women are socialised to grieve.