Portrait of a sculptor

On the occasion of the UN´s International Year of Volunteers 2001 Jens Galschiot created the copper sculpture The Fiery Soul, a stand with a gas flame at the top. The intention was to highlight the effort of the many volunteers in Denmark and all over the globe.

“I want to give a visual expression of the manifold functions of voluntary work. As a leitmotiv I have chosen the fire and so the light. The fire has since the earliest times been the place people gathered around. It represents the light in the darkness, the hope. I wish to point at both The Fiery Soul,- the prime mover, who gets things moving, but also at the thousands of people, who bear the brunt of the daily grind as volunteers. The fire represents the heat which is necessary for our survival as whole human beings”, Jens Galschiot says.

The Fiery Soul standing in front of the Odense Congress Center at the inauguration of the Year of Volunteers in Denmark

A series of 40 Fiery Soul Awards - given to

associations for outstanding volunteering initiatives