After-Ozymandias

The debate over Confederate monuments has many Americans reconsidering how historical figures are represented in public space. Monumental sculptures are often built 1/3rd larger than human scale, high upon a pedestal looking down at us, made of stone or bronze, rooted with bolts in to the ground. These materiel decisions support myth's of immortality, yet they're falling all around us. 

After-Ozymandias is a nod to a poem written by Percy Shelley about the inevitable decline of any empire and their surviving pretensions to greatness. Ozymandias is the Greek name for Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled Egypt during the thirteenth century. Percy wrote the poem in 1817 shortly after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of his statue.

These photos are of what remains after a statue crumbles or falls; empty plinths.