Museum Sparks Controversy by Turning Homeless People Into an Art Installation

[Omaha Steve]

A Roma couple is on display at the Malmö Konsthall in Sweden—and it's all to raise awareness of income inequality.



By Liz Dwyer

Staff Writer Liz Dwyer has written about race, parenting, and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.


With hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our midst, folks trying to stay warm in doorways—or begging in busy intersections or outside convenience stores—are a common sight. But perhaps proving that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions, a Swedish museum has taken a controversial approach to humanizing folks who live on the streets: It has put one down-and-out couple on display.

With their installation at the Malmö Konsthall in Malmö, Sweden, the display’s creators, an art group called Institutet, said they hoped to spark a dialogue about wealth inequality and how we treat those among us who beg for money.

“As an artist I can offer a space where people can investigate why they are so tolerant towards these injustices that actually go against their own morality,” Anders Carlsson, the artistic director of the group, told AFP.

To accomplish that, the group hired 28-year-old Luca Lacatus and his pregnant 26-year-old girlfriend, Marcella Cheresi. The two were begging for cash on the street in Malmö when the artists approached them and asked them to be a part of the project.

FULL story at link.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I'm sad to hear that a country like Sweden has so many homeless.

I tend to expect better of them than I do the US.