This resin and metal sculpture was created by sculptor Sandrine Plante-Rougeol for Memory Week 2019. This sculpture, acquired by the City of Bordeaux and inaugurated on December 2, 2019, is a tribute to the enslaved people, in remembrance of their suffering. So that we never forget these crimes against humanity—the slave trade and slavery itself—and so that they may never happen again.

Plante-Rougeol, a descendant of enslaved people herself, is a committed figurative sculptor, a Zorey of Réunionese and Auvergne descent. The artist’s work invites viewers to think of her work “as a connection of symbols interwoven in space and time.” The symbol of the tree of life and its roots linking heaven and earth also recalls African animist beliefs.

The tree bears three branches in reference to the triangular trade.…