UK seaside community unites to restore vandalised statue of Black woman

When the sculpture in Bexhill was spray-painted white, its artist invited locals to help repair it in a powerful gesture against racism

When a three-metre-tall sculpture depicting a Black woman leisurely turning in her chair towards the English Channel was spray-painted white by vandals, it was rapidly covered from view.

But when Tschabalala Self, the New York-based artist behind Seated, heard what had happened to her sculpture soon after it was installed at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, her instinct was to show the defaced work.