To Serve and Protect | Part 3
Transcript
My name is Eldon Garnet, I'm the artist of the 3 part sculpture "To Serve and Protect" at the Metropolitan Toronto Police Headquarters. You are standing beside the everyman. This everyman is carrying on a wooden support on his shoulders which is bronze in this rendering, two bricks and two large oversized books. He's obviously a representation of justice and equality, and he's walking he's in motion. What are these objects on his shoulder. The books? The books of the law of course, the books of knowledge, the books of engineering. And on his other shoulder are two granite blocks. These two granite blocks are what is missing from the sculpture on the other side of the building. He walks right through the building, past the desk and out the east doors he will confront the police woman who is building a base. This man, this everyman is also involved in building a base for a sculpture which is to arrive. He is the future. He again is an allegorical figure and he is part of the construction of the positive nature of building something for the future.
What I'm asking in this 3 part sculpture is that all 3 components are working together to build, to build something which is a monument but is an incomplete monument which deals with power, knowledge, authority, all the elements that are embodied in the notion of policing. And what I always wanted was the notion that the police were never finished the task of doing what they had to do, that it is much of a community activity, that it has to take place with all these people working together to build something.
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