But he did not want to shoot the elephant

Image: © David Dixon Taken: 15 Jul 2018

‘Bending Figure’, one of Raqs Media Collective’s ‘Coronation Park’ sculptures, was installed in the park in 2017 as part of the Whitworth Art Gallery’s “Raqs Media Collective: Twilight Language” exhibition which ran between on 30 September 2017 and 25 February 2018. There are three circular discs attached to the sculpture with the words: “One could have imagined him thousands of years old. He fired again into the same spot.” “But he did not want to shoot the elephant.” “And then down he came, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground.” Quotations from George Orwell’s "Shooting an Elephant” "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_an_Elephant which describes the experience of the English narrator, possibly Orwell himself, called upon to shoot an aggressive elephant while working as a police officer in Burma. Because the locals expect him to do the job, he does so against his better judgment, his anguish increased by the elephant's slow and painful death. The story is regarded as a metaphor for British imperialism, and for Orwell's view that "when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys (http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/ The Literature Network).

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