Homeless get permanent housing in the European Parliament

I have had some quite embarrassing mess with my mailing list. And some people were on the list that did not wish to receive my mails. So I’ve decided to clean up my life and get a new mailing system.

Homeless got permanent housing in the European Parliament

Newsletter from Jens Galschiøt

I have had some quite embarrassing mess with my mailing list. And some people were on the list that did not wish to receive my mails. So I’ve decided to clean up my life and get a new mailing system.

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The homeless sculpture ”Man on Bench” has been permanently exhibited at the European Parliament. Since the sculpture, which was made in my workshop, was revealed on April 8th it has become a great attraction. Visitors to the parliament tend to sit on the bench by the homeless man and have their picture taken. Some visitors even give the poor man money which was quite a surprise for me. It has now been decided that the money "Man on Bench" receives will go to charity.

It is not the first time that the sculpture is placed in Brussels. By arrangement of Parliamentarian Britta Thomsen it has been a part of a larger exhibition of homeless sculptures in connection to EUs year of poverty and social exclusion in 2010.

The sculpture is one of 13 life size bronze sculptures of homeless people. They have before been touring Europe to put focus on the social exclusion and the people who have a hard time finding their place in our rational effective society. Back then the tour got a lot of attention, as a large number of ’homeless’ bronze statues were placed in the public areas. It was in some ways an interactive street art-exhibition. People, who were actually homeless, showed visitors the exhibition while telling them about the tough life as a homeless.

The idea of making the homeless sculpture-campaign grew from a cooperation between my organization Art In Defense Of Humanism and the Danish NGO ’Project UDENFOR’ (project OUTSIDE) which works with homelessness in Copenhagen. Amongst other things the exhibition made way for working with the homeless’ own organization SAND. Not to mention cooperation with the international organization Feantsa. This is a European organization for social workers, who work with the problems in relation to homelessness. See info and photos

See the united press release from Britta Thomsen, Jens Galschiøt and project UDENFOR.

Giant art project about Religious Fundamentalism at this workshop.

10 art employees are currently working full time to prepare what will probably be the workshops biggest project namely the art- and dialogue project ‘The Children of Abraham’.

The project puts focus on religious fundamentalism within Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The project is to establish a constructive dialog and bridge the gap between Jews, Christians and Muslims. The dialog is staged through the art installation ‘Fundamentalism’ and 600 ‘light’ (‘good’, compassionate etc.) and ‘dark’ quotes from the Torah, Bible and Quran.

See description of the project in (PDF) Danish - English - German and Spanish.

We have made a secretariat, which is organizing the dialogue process and the exhibitions. At the workshop we are working full time on making the 80 square meters and 14 tons "Fundamentalism"- sculpture which the project revolves around. It is built by 8000 copper books, which forms the letters ‘F.U.N.D.A.M.E.N.T.A.L.I.S.M’. The letters are placed in a big circle. In the exterior of the sculpture circle, 14 big flat screens display the ‘light’ quotes, in the interior the ‘dark’ quotes are displayed. See info and photos

The grand opening/revealing of the sculpture will take place at Art Center "Silkeborg Bad" (in Denmark) in January, 2015.

We are also working on 10 minor sculpture-pedestals, which will very soon be used for exhibitions throughout Denmark. Amongst other things we ‘invade’ the political ‘Peoples Summit’ in Bornholm with a range of Sculptures, screens displaying quotations and lots of activists.

Competition: We have made a really cool ‘Quiz On Quotes’, where you have to guess the origin of quotations from the holy books The Torah, The Bible and The Quran. Try it! – its rather fun, and it will make you smarter and prettier (that’s a garantee). Moreover you can win a copper book-sculpture from ’Fundamentalism’-art installation.

In a later mail we will send out more information about the project.

And do remember to enjoy the spring time.