The monument contains the plaster-cast faces of hundreds of trans+ individuals
BY ELLA GAUCI
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth has finally been unveiled, showcasing the powerful monument to trans+ lives created by Teresa Margolles. The Mexican artist created the new plinth with 726 plaster casts of the faces of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people from both Mexico and the UK.
A large crowd watched as the Fourth Plinth was revealed, creating a stark reminder of the importance of celebrating and supporting trans+ lives. The new artwork, entitled Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times In An Instant), was arranged in the form of a Tzompantli, a skull rack from Mesoamerican civilisations which was often used to display the remains of sacrifice victims or prisoners of war.
Teresa Margolles said: “This collective sculpture, which brings together the faces of 726 people living in the United Kingdom and Mexico, stands not only as a display of resilience and humanity from the trans plus/non-binary community but also as a reminder of the murders and disappearances that still occur, especially in Latin America.”
“Through this structure, Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), there is a return to the human, the primal, the sacred.”
This moving monument will act as a message of grief and solidarity for the trans+ lives that have been lost, and those who are still fighting injustice. Margolles had said prior that this monument was in memorial for her friend Karla La Borrada, a singer and former sex worker who was murdered.
Mexico has the second-highest murder rate for trans and gender non-conforming people in South America. Earlier this year, Mexico City passed a law making trans femicide a crime with a prison sentence of up to 70 years.
The monument will stand in the centre of one of London’s most popular tourist destinations and is expected to disintegrate and erode in the UK’s dreary weather. In an interview with The Guardian, Margolles said: “They will fade and transform. It’s a natural process. What interests me, and the reason why I’m not displaying the outside of the casts, is because it would be breaking the soul of it, which is the face of the person. Like this, each cast will react to the elements in its own way, according to the organic materials left on the mask.”
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