The mayor of Liverpool has vowed the city “will not be beaten by fascist thugs” after a memorial to dead migrants and refugees was vandalised.
The List, an art project which features the names of the 34,361 people who lost their lives trying to reach Europe since 1993, was covered with the words “INVADERS NOT REFUGEES!”
The installation was torn down twice this summer.
Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, said the people who vandalised the piece by Istanbul-based artist Banu Cennetolu “have had their brains invaded by hatred”.
The List, which is updated every year by the group United for Intercultural Action, was published by the Guardian on World Refugee Day this year.
In August, the Liverpool Biennial festival organisers and the artist released a joint statement in which they said the 280m hoarding on Great George Street had been “repeatedly damaged, removed and targeted” since it was installed.
The statement added that the artwork had not been vandalised when it was shown in previous cities, including Berlin, Istanbul, Basel and Athens.
Last month, a Liverpool city council spokesperson said they were “saddened by this mindless act of vandalism” and expressed “surprise and disgust at such a rare occurrence in the city”.
Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary visual art.
Every two years, it commissions artists from around the world to make and present work in public spaces, galleries, museums and online around the city.