COPENHAGEN, Denmark – In preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (on December 6-18) in Denmark’s capital city, Jens Galschiot, one of the country’s best-known artists, worked on a series of relevant creations.

One art project placed a sculpture titled Survival Of The Fattest (The Fat Lady) beside a Danish national symbol, The Little Mermaid. The new artwork has an overweight woman, a perceived goddess of justice, riding on the shoulders of a gaunt African man standing underwater to his hips. This symbolizes “the double-standard and self-righteousness of the rich world”. With scales in hand, the fat female (Western nations) burdens a starving person (the Third World), while pretending to apply justice and do what’s best.

By juxtaposing this three-metre bronze sculpture depicting harsh realities with the gentle mermaid, Galschiot highlights climate-debate hypocrisy. He wants the Fat Lady “to confront and go into dialogue with” passing tourists and conference attendees.

Galschiot says the West sits like the Little Mermaid on a stone or like the Fat Lady safely above rising waters. “We are happy and sure we have the economy and resources to prevent climate changes from striking us. Meanwhile, many islands are getting flushed away while hurricanes, drought and hunger strike the rest of the world, especially in Africa and Asia.

“Climate changes are caused by the West’s great consumption of resources. They can be stopped only if the West starts massive investments in energy that’s free of CO2 and in sustainable production. Yet we won’t change our ways of living to really make a difference. On the contrary, Western governments call on their citizens to start a new consumption orgy to get out of the financial crisis.”

Some experts predict 200 million climate refugees and many violent demographic shifts within 40 years. “This vicious circle can only be avoided by stopping global warming and starting massive organizations to help the countries that the climate crisis strikes,” said Galschiot.

Earlier, he created the Pillar of Shame statue that stands in Hong Kong as a reminder of the Beijing Massacre (June 4, 1989) when Chinese soldiers killed thousands of innocent citizens, many of them student protestors.

The noblest task for any artist is to remind arrogant people of injustice and shortfalls. Galschiot does this extremely well.



Perfectly placed, the new artwork
should 'confont' passing people.


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