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Portrait of a sculptor |
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A huge fat woman from the West is sitting on the shoulders of starved African man. The 3.5 metre high sculpture was created by Jens Galschiot and his sculptor colleague Lars Calmar. The sculpture epitomises the imbalanced distribution of the world’s resources. We are living comfortably, oppressing the poor people by means of a biased and unjust world trade. The rich countries enforce discriminating tariff barriers and subsidies to keep the poor countries out. The sculpture was unveiled December 2002 in Copenhagen. Subsequently Danish NGOs used the sculpture in their campaign against the global trade robbery. The woman is holding a pair of scales as a symbol of justice. But she is closing her eyes, so the justice is degenerating into self-righteousness. We, symbolised by the woman, refuse to see the obvious injustice. In the rich part of the world our main scourge is obesity due to overconsumption while people in the third world are dying of hunger. The misery is creating floods of refugees. In a desperate attempt to entrench ourselves and preserve our privileges we resort to measures so harsh that we betray our ideals of humanism and democracy. |
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So speaks Justitia (western goddess of justice): I'm sitting on the back of a man |