Friday 8 February 2008

Exhibition Review: Of All the People Of The World, Truro Catherdal

I have just come back from the "Of All the People Of The World" exhibition at the Truro Cathedral.

The idea is to use grains of rice to represent individuals and then make heaps of rice that represent various demographic, statistical or trivial facts as piles on the floor.

The biggest pile was for "People with HIV in Sub Saharan Africa". I guess it was about the size of a badger. Then there were smaller piles for things like "Number of people who have walked on the Moon" and the "Number of Visitors in Cornwall in 2007."

It was interesting, but I am not sure really what it was trying to represent as significant, and aesthetically it wasn't very rich.

Sure, there was the suggestion of "global causes, man", and it was a mind-catching portrayal of humanity as quantity, but I left with not much else. Importantly there was no mention of overpopulation as a problem: www.dropthepop.org

As a footnote, it was strangely comforting to know that there are not really THAT many child soldiers (a heap about the size of a ciabatta).






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