https://twitter.com/isthismyemail1/status/978573841491529728
On Sunday afternoon in Buckinghamshire, England, a David Bowie statue (the world’s first) was unveiled, which was made possible thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that raised £100,000. It’s been two days since then, and just 48 hours after it was unveiled, the statue has already been vandalized.
The statue has been covered in graffiti, green spray paint that says “RIP DB” and “feed the homeless first.” The latter statement seems misguided in its intent, assuming the vandal was hoping that public money used on the statue would be used for more charitable causes. The problem with that logic is that the statue was crowdfunded, as Deputy Mayor Mark Willis reminds us:
“I want to point out that this statue received precisely £0 of public money. That’s right, £0. It was entirely funded through crowdfunding, by members of the public, myself included. One of the charities I support monthly is Shelter as homelessness and poverty are absolute scourges on society that need solving.”
The good news is that the defacement doesn’t seem to be too significant, and it’s expected that the statue will be returned to its previous condition in a matter of days.
Speaking previously about the statue, David Stopps, the fan who organized the crowdfunding campaign for the statue, said:
“When he left us in January 2016, there was an amazing, immediate outpouring of emotion in the town about it. We had a gathering here under the arches and 2,000 people turned up a few days after he died. We had Bowie music and videos, and it was a lovely celebration. We thought we must do something as a monument for the town and David Bowie.”
