This miniature sculpted world is a narrative critique on the uncontrolled growth of third world slums – this one in Haiti. Village Démocratie is the re-creation of a shantytown outside Port-au-Prince where residents shared fragments of their lives with Canadian artist Karine Giboulo. Her intricate sculpted scenes creates colourful miniature worlds that meld reality and fantasy. The work uses pathos and humour to comment on the human condition and issues such as globalization, consumerism and the environment.
The diorama is on exhibit through March in Ottawa. The Montreal-based sculptor uses polymer clay, acrylic, plexiglass, wood, metal and mixed materials to tell the stories of a disintegrating world.
As life in the country becomes increasingly difficult, the migration of the agrarian people to urban centers regularly transforms the hopes and dreams of rural dwellers into a second nightmare. – Artist Statement
Part of the work shows the easy life of the Haitian one-percent and foreigners, “including a golf course and a luxury resort where a few lucky regular Haitians get to be employed, serving tall cold drinks to the resort patrons basking around the swimming pool. The resort patrons are not actually human, but a kind of bloated porcine/ursine mix” – From a review in Artspace of a Buffalo, NY showing of Democracy Village.
Karine Giboulo’s website, here.
Her C.V., here.
Normally I don’t deal with art, but this is just too awesome not to share! I am reblogging this on The Urban Link. Thanks for a great post!
Thank you for the re-blog. She’s really hit an important nerve with this, agree.
Reblogged this on The Urban Link and commented:
is too awesome NOT to share…so much detail to this story via physical art.
Good work by an honourable artist! I’m humbled as a consumer.
One of the great objectives of a piece of art such as this, I think, that humbling realization. I experienced it, too.
Thoughtful, compassionate and important work. Thank you for sharing!
And she’s extremely tenacious about her mission, which is wonderful to see.
Very powerful. I would love to see this in person and get into all the details. She obviously went deep into the subject to produce something like this. Dora the Explorer and Pooh t-shirts even! And the symbolism of rats dining large. Wow. Love it.
I didn’t see those details, appreciated (Dora especially). Her other works are just as powerful, too.
Reblogged this on ariesnajmi.