It was placed on the empty plinth from which a 19th-century statue of Edward Colston, who had been involved in the Atlantic slave trade, had been toppled, defaced and pushed into the city's harbour by George Floyd protesters the previous month.

On 7 June 2020 the statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th- and 18th-century Bristol merchant, philanthropist and Member of Parliament who had been involved in the Atlantic slave trade,[1] was toppled during George Floyd protests in the United Kingdom.

[3] Following the toppling of the statue, Black Lives Matter protester Jen Reid, a woman of Jamaican descent,[4] climbed onto the plinth and made a raised fist.

"[7] The statue A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020 was constructed by the artist Marc Quinn and his team from black resin and steel.

[1][6] It is a life-size depiction of Reid, a 49-year old black woman,[8][6] making the same raised fist pose she struck on the plinth shortly after the Colston statue's removal.

[11] The Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees later said that some weeks earlier Quinn had asked him about placing a statue on the plinth, but that he had refused believing it to be "not the correct next step for the city" and to have the potential to incite race-hate incidents.

The image created by Jen that day – when she stood on the plinth with all the hope of the future of the world flowing through her – made the possibility of greater change feel more real than it has before.

"[6] In a joint statement Quinn and Reid wrote "Jen and I are not putting this sculpture on the plinth as a permanent solution to what should be there – it's a spark which we hope will help to bring continued attention to this vital and pressing issue.

[20] The Council made "a conscious decision not to proceed with the processing of those applications" because the We Are Bristol History Commission set up by mayor Marvin Rees was considering a wide range of issues about the city's past.

[25] Price said: "a genuine example of allyship could have been to give the financial support and production facilities required for a young, local, Black artist to make the temporary replacement.

[27] In an article for Art Review, Kadish Morris suggested that Quinn and Reid’s use of the term ‘collaboration’ to describe the work could serve as a loophole for the artist to avoid the charge of exploitation.

Sculptures created by white men that bypass democratic processes (for which activists in Bristol have campaigned, for too long) are not the kinds of radical justice we need to see in the arts and culture sector.