Skalli tells a story of the origin of one of the most loaded words in the city. Beyond Merseyside the word is as interchangeable with scouser as any. Even here it’s hard to define in itself. It’s an insult to some, a badge to others, but know if you leave these city lines you’re a scally to someone.
Perched on a plinth outside Liverpool Parish Church, staring out into the murky Mersey, an inverted mermaid just sort of sits there, looking lost, beaten, defeated. The creature is, according to Patric Rogers, a new manifestation of the first skallis to crawl from the river and onto the land.
The Liverpool Plinth has been host to about a dozen prize winning sculptures over the years, all special, but none that hit home like this. Because Skalli is absolutely every single one of us scousers. Every one of us feeling misplaced, in a country we barely see as ours, looking to the river for meaning. Typically, this plinth is occupied by things that celebrate something, and this doesn’t. This beautiful creature is an honest and open force for good, because it’s asking really quite explicitly that we stop for more than one second and actually think about who and what we are as a people.
How do we interact with and respect our neighbours? How do we compare to them? And when we compare, when do we stop and realise it’s not a competition. Because outside these city lines every single one of us is a scally to someone.
There is so much more to be revealed around this project, so much more to take in. When Patric Rogers first told me about it I nearly wept. It’s the perfect sculpture for this moment. And behind it is the perfect story, true or not, of how that loaded word came to being; how the Skalli crawled from the river and became part of who we are as a people.
I can only imagine the excitement of the judging panel when they came across this proposal, the conversations they thought it could spark. And I can barely begin to think how they felt when it became a meme within hours of its installation.
Just think of the last time you saw an artist build a story so strong that it took on its own subplot before the story was even told. That’s effortlessly successful, and intimidatingly exciting. But it’s also empowering for artists across the region, knowing that their stories properly told can have this sort of immediate impact. And for any one of us working in this often ridiculous art world to know that those who still think art is in some plane of higher thought accessible only to trained or welcomed eyes, that they’re wrong, because this is moving, regardless.
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Skalli will remain on the Liverpool Plinth outside Liverpool Parish Church until summer 2027 (but it should almost definitely be permanently relocated to the waterfront after that and I will happily lead that campaign)
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
