Monuments to a Failed Love Affair

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Monuments to a Failed Love Affair is a dispersed project across the public spaces of central London.

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In Victorian times, it was common to engrave names, initials, or messages of affection onto coins and give them to a crush as a declaration of love. If accepted, they were often worn as jewellery; if rejected, it was customary to throw the coin into the Thames. Found today by mudlarkers, these coins tell a story of a failed love affair that never happened.

 

Drawing on the historical subject of Victorian Love Coins, the work proposes a counter-memorial, one that challenges conventional concepts of memorialisation in public space. These memorials carry stories of failed love, heartbreak and rejection. Their presence introduces a sense of melancholy and haunting into the city’s landscape, their individualised narratives gesture towards wider histories of disappointment and failed futures.