The Knife Angel – A Sculpture Made of 100,000 Police Confiscated Knives

Photo: The Knife Angel/Facebook

Clive Knowles, head of the British Ironworks Centre, told The Guardian that the idea for the Knife Angel was inspired by a television documentary on knife crime in the UK and the desire to raise awareness about the large number of weapons on the streets. They started supplying knife banks to 43 police forces across England and Wales two years ago, and since then, more than 100,000 weapons have been taken off the streets and delivered to the center to be used for the massive artwork.

“It’s an enormous task,” Knowles said last year. “We are liaising with 43 police forces. Most people will only see the finished project but they won’t see the enormous work that goes in to take these thousands of weapons off the streets. We see huge theatrical weapons, like machetes and samurai swords, which come over for the gift market but end up on our streets.”

Photo: British Ironworks Centre/Facebook

The Knife Angel was completed recently and is set to tour the UK, but at one point last year it was unclear if would ever be unveiled. The problem was that six out of the 43 police stations involved in the project were not contributing any knives, so the British Ironworks Centre refused to complete the artwork in protest.

“How can police forces not support this at a time when the crime is on the up, especially when a company is willing to support and fund the bins and banks? If a fatal stabbing happens in one of these forces areas, how will a chief constable explain to families that they failed to hold an amnesty that was being funded already? That will be a very difficult conversation,” Clive Knowles told the Shropshire Star.

“We can’t even try and take the sculpture out of the studio until we get the remaining forces to action their surrender amnesty. Originally we pledged to get 100,000 knives off the streets with the backing of all 43 forces. It’s been created against and to raise awareness of Britain’s issues with violent knife crime, so we’re not able to unveil it until all constabularies are on board with it,” Knowles added.

In the end, 41 of the 43 police stations got on board, and the finished Knife Angel was finally unveiled, a few days ago.

Photo: British Ironworks Centre/Facebook

The Knife Angel has sparked controversy ever since it was announced, over two years ago. While some knife crime victims’ families have been supportive of the project, even visiting the workshop and engraving messages on the wings of the sculpture, others strongly opposed it. Members of a Facebook group called “Say no to the knife angel” voiced their opinions online.

Read More