A giant ice sculpture of the word \u201cdemocracy\u201d was unveiled on the National Mall Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The melting piece of art is meant to symbolize \u201cAmerica\u2019s weakened democracy and the costs of its failure amid growing militarism and authoritarianism,\u201d organizers say.<\/p>\n
The entire sculpture spans about 20 feet and is in view of the Capitol.<\/p>\n
The two New York City artists behind the installation, Marshall Reese and Nora Ligorano, have been installing temporary sculptures like this since 2006. This is the fourth time they have used the word democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard being an American to think that we need pro-democracy advocacy actions and groups, but that\u2019s what we do,\u201d Reese said.<\/p>\n
Reese says recent government changes and what they view as an expansion of the executive branch influenced this artwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocracy functions when people participate in it. Participate in elections or participate in working and communicating with their elected officials,\u201d Reese said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to see more of that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reese and Ligorano worked on the 3,000 pound sculpture, which they are calling \u201cLast Call \u2013 DemocracyICED,\u201d as part of the Up in Arms campaign \u2014 an initiative led by Ben & Jerry\u2019s co-founder Ben Cohen to advocate for responsible military spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that people see this and are inspired to get to work and save our democracy,\u201d Reese said.<\/p>\n
The sculpture will remain in place until it melts away completely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A giant ice sculpture of the word \u201cdemocracy\u201d was unveiled on the National Mall Wednesday. The melting piece…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,105515,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-228931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-national-mall","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}