The past several years have seen numerous protests and acts of vandalism directed against public monuments deemed to be offensive, particularly during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 sparked by the death of George Floyd (1973-2020) in the United States. In Australia, the defacement of statues and sites associated with navigator Captain James Cook (1728-1779) and colonial Governor Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) continues. Some in the museum sector argue a policy of “retain and explain,” or “dialogical memorialisation,” should be adopted towards problematic works, whereby contemporary objections are contextualised and articulated.
Nina Sanadze, who was born in Georgia during the Soviet era, is well acquainted with such controversies. She concedes that provocative historical works and sites can still serve a purpose, "they not
