Author Archives: Isaac

About Isaac

Curious photographer and blogger. Likes sci-fi, retrogaming, 80s music and coffee.

The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen

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She’s a celebrity. Dozens of excited people point and take photos. When I first see Edvard Eriksen’s “Little Mermaid” sitting serenely on a rock by the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen, I feel I am encountering someone famous. The persona is very familiar. I expect her to move. Is that really her?

Little Mermaid 1

Photo: Isaac Griberg

Like many female celebrities, she is very beautiful. She is poised. Her skin is smooth. She was modelled after the ballerina Ellen Price who appeared in a ballet inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” Eriksen was commissioned to create the life-size bronze beauty in 1909 by local dignitary Carl Jacobsen (of Carlsberg beer fame.) The work was completed in 1913.

Little Mermaid 2

Photo: Isaac Griberg

As I train my long lens on her face I can’t help noticing the sadness that the sculptor has captured. Maybe because the story that inspired the sculpture is sad. Well, more than sad; it is tragic. There is even academic debate about how the story ends.

Like many celebrities, she has been copied many times. She also travels: in 2010, she went for five months to the Shanghai World Expo. But celebrity is dangerous. The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the bodyguard! It seems that the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen needs a big bodyguard.

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Originally published by Spiegel Online. Photo: AP Photo / Kristoffer Eriksen

She has been painted many times. She has been dressed in burqas.

Little Mermaid 4

Originally published by DR. Photo: Brian Bergmann

In 1984, for reasons unknown, her right arm was cut away only to be returned by the vandals two days later.

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Originally published by DR. Photo: Ulf Nilsen

She has been decaptiated twice: in 1964 and 1998. On the first occasion, her head was never found. So the face I photograph was not the original!? Another tragedy! I wonder if Edvard Eriksen foresaw the dangers that have come with the Little Mermaid’s well-merited celebrity?

Christine Z II

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A few months ago, Robin wrote about the beautiful and touching sculptures of Heinz Schwarz. The implicit link between his “Clementine” (1974) and “Adolescent and horse” (1976) was the tragedy and suffering that, for different reasons, can befall young lives.

There is not so much information available about the location of Schwarz’s works. Lionel, one of our readers, recently put us on to one of the sculptor’s lesser-known bronze masterpieces. Camera in hand, I hurried off to hunt down this beautiful stuff and found another stunning study of adolescence. “Christine Z II” surveys Geneva’s Botanical Gardens from a leafy surround.

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Christine Z II (year unknown) by Heinz Schwarz

The young girl is slim, poised and lithe of limb. Her smooth skin and blatant emerging sexuality are fragile and poignant in the extreme. In contrast to her cousin “Clementine,” she emanates neither sadness nor tragedy. She seems only amused and bemused by the visitors to her green domain.

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Profile of Christine Z II

“Christine Z II” manifests resilience with a confident, pensive intelligence. It is as though she has just come to recognise the power of her feminine beauty. Will her enclosing foliage always protect her from the dark forces of our world? I hope so.

Thanks, Lionel.

Vertigo-inducing floor painting to combat mean diseases

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“Mosquitoes, flies, ticks and bugs may be a threat to your health, at home and when traveling”, says the World Health Organization (WHO) on this year’s World Health Day. In an attempt to draw attention to so called “vector-borne diseases”, and explain how to prevent them, the Geneva-based organization made a vertigo-inducing floor painting at their headquarter and at London Heathrow Airport. Together with my daughter, we had the chance to swing by WHO to check it out. Take a look at this mind-boggling piece!

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Now, what are we looking at…? A cracked road? A hole? A look into the future? Or the past? We see a giant, evil-looking, mosquito buzzing away from a little girl holding an ill-looking doll in her arms. A woman with a baby sitting next to a pile of trash. A water-filled car tyre. A pile of something blue. The illustration-illusion-thingy makes us wonder who these people are, if they are good health, and whether the skeeter has bitten them or not!

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Like Josi and me, most people stop, look, smile, jump and have their photo taken next to the “3D illustration” that was developed by London-based Red Door Communications. What a clever way to catch people’s attention! At Heathrow, WHO used the floor painting as a platform to test air travelers’ knowledge about malaria, dengue, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis and other unpronounceable diseases. Take a look here: