COP26 ‘Beacon of Hope’ statue at Glasgow Central featuring Jackie Kay poem defaced with racist graffiti

A public sculpture in Glasgow Central’s concourse created for COP26 featuring a Jackie Kay poem has been vandalised by racist graffiti.

‘The Beacon of Hope’ was created by artist Steuart Padwick as a response to COP26 at the end of 2021- there are three such sculptures around Glasgow and all of them aim to highlight humanity’s hope for the future through the eyes of a child.

The other two sculptures also feature similar sculpted androgynous child figures and aim to inspire hope into the people of Glasgow. One can be found 23 metres high on a plinth overlooking the Cuningar Loop, the park once home to Glasgow’s last functioning coal mine - it’s also made from recycled sustainable cement.

The other statue is a 3.5 metre high, three-figure installation in gardens at Strathclyde University cut from reclaimed steel. The Glasgow Central station hope sculpture stands at 4.5 metres high, and is cut from Scottish spruce. It looks over Glasgow Central from the West side of the concourse.

The Glasgow Central hope sculpture features a Jackie Kay poem - the one that was defaced with racist graffiti. The poem was engraved into the statue as a result of a collaboration between the artist and the Mental Health Foundation - using words that resonate with the hopeful message contributed by Scottish cultural figures.

The poem was created by Jackie Kay for the statue in Glasgow Central - it reads:

“Hope is Black Lives Matter.

“Hope is MeToo. Hope is my son

“and my daughter. Hope is a girl called

“Hope is the colour of the future.”

It was the first line of the stanza that was defaced - in which ‘Black Lives Matter’ was crossed out. It was reported by one Twitter user on Monday December 12, to which staff at Glasgow Central acted quickly to clean off the graffiti.

In less than 24 hours staff had removed any trace of the offending graffiti. Creator and artist Steuart Padwick said he wanted to suggest humanity had a positive future; he had despaired at the anxiety he had seen in children worrying about the fate of the planet. The figure’s outstretched arms are designed to be reaching out and embracing.

Padwick said about the statues when they were created last year:“It is reaching out across Glasgow. Its message is very simple: why would anyone want to poison their future,”

Other Glaswegian authors also featured on the statues include: Andrew O’Hagan, Ali Smith, and Douglas Stuart. Local children also helped carve messages into the hope statues around Glasgow.