A SCULPTURE OF a Black Lives Matter protester has replaced the toppled statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

The bronze memorial to the 17th Century slave merchant was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter protest on 7 June and later dumped in the city’s harbour.

It was removed amid worldwide protests triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers in the US city of Minneapolis.

The Guardian reports this morning that Colston has now been replaced with a sculpture of one of the protesters who removed the original statue, Jen Reid.

Reid was photographed standing on the plinth with her fist raised where Colston’s statue stood, and a work depicting the moment was created by the artist Marc Quinn.

It’s reported that a group of around ten people worked secretly at to install the sculpture in the early hours of this morning.

Local authorities, who previously said the recovered statue of Colston would be placed in a museum, had not made any plans for the location and are reportedly unaware of the move to install Quinn’s sculpture.

A placard reading “black lives still matter” was also placed at the bottom of the plinth following the sculpture’s installation.

Reid told The Guardian that her “stomach has been flipping upside down” and described the move as “incredible”.

“Being up there, with my fist raised… it was an amazing moment, and this captures it. It gives me goose pimples,” she said.