3D-Printed Pillar of Shame Appears at June 4th Commemoration in Taipei
- Project
- EXH-017
- Location
- Taipei, Taiwan
- Date
- 4 June 2022
- Press
- VOA Cantonese — 台北六四燭光晚會揭幕「國殤之柱」RFA Cantonese (自由亞洲) — 【六四33周年】台北舉辦悼念晚會：重新樹立國殤之柱聯合新聞網 (UDN) — 六四藝術展台北開幕 「恥辱柱」雕塑家盼遍地開花Newtalk 新聞 — 六四藝術展恥辱柱遭黑衣人噴漆 華人民主書院強烈譴責關鍵評論網 (The News Lens) — 香港大學「恥辱柱」啟動台灣重現計畫
- Partners
- Chinese Democracy College Association, New School for Democracy
4 June 1989. Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, killing hundreds — possibly thousands. The date has been commemorated annually in Hong Kong ever since, most visibly through the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, attended by tens of thousands each year. That tradition ended abruptly under the National Security Law: the Hong Kong Alliance was disbanded in 2021, its leaders imprisoned, and all public commemoration of June 4 effectively banned.
The Pillar of Shame — Jens Galschiøt's sculpture of 50 tortured bodies stacked upon one another — had stood at the University of Hong Kong since 1997 as one of the only permanent public memorials to the massacre on Chinese soil. It too was removed in December 2021. When Lady Liberty HK digitally preserved the sculpture and released the 3D model for free public download, the goal was always for it to travel — to exist in places where it could no longer be suppressed.
On 4 June 2022, the 33rd anniversary of the massacre, that goal was realised. The Chinese Democracy College Association and New School for Democracy brought a 3D-printed Pillar of Shame — produced from our model — to the June 4th commemoration evening in Taipei. The sculpture that Hong Kong's authorities had tried to erase was standing again.