Danish artist creates new sculpture in Pillar of Shame series to show solidarity with Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters
- The eight-metre-tall sculpture, made by Jens Galschiot to show solidarity with the movement, will be erected outside the Danish parliament on January 23
- Similar artworks are erected in Hong Kong, Acteal in Mexico, and Brasilia in Brazil, ‘to remind people of a shameful event which must never recur’
The Danish artist who created a sculpture in his famous Pillar of Shame series to commemorate the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown in Beijing has made a new artwork on a modified version of the theme to show solidarity with Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters.
The eight-metre-tall sculpture will be erected outside the Danish parliament on January 23.
Jens Galschiot’s new work, which depicts torn and twisted bodies to mourn those killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown, also features faces of Hong Kong’s protesters, with helmets, goggles and gas masks.
“Hong Kong citizens have a chance of preserving [their] freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly only if they are backed by us in the West,” Galschiot said in a statement. “I have talked to activists of the pro-democracy movement and I know moral support is crucial to them.”
Three Pillar of Shame sculptures are permanently erected in Hong Kong, Acteal in Mexico, and Brasilia in Brazil, “to remind people of a shameful event which must never recur”. The one in the city has been installed at the University of Hong Kong.