United Buddy Bears - The Art of Tolerance

The bears have taken over the Senate Square in Helsinki! All together 142 bear statues have emerged in Senate Square on Sept the 1st from Berlin to share together a message of tolerance. Each statue represents one country confessed by the UN, and is illuststrated by an artist from that country. So every statue tells a story about it's own country, and together as one piece of art they tell how diverse the world is. The idea is that in order to undesrtand each other and live peacefully together, we need to know each other better. So each bear statue is like an embassador of it's own country.

Each artist had got a similar statue to work on, two meters high bear with hands up position. The assignment has been to illustrate it so that it reflects something about her/his country. The variation between the implementations was vast, just like I expected it to be. The cultural differencies were rich in colours, techniques and in ways to perceive the bear as an object. Some artists had handled the bears as animals, worn them in clothes and painted expressions on their faces, as some artists had chosen a more abstract approach to the theme. I must say I in general liked more of the abstract implementations, I found the bears worn in national costumes a bit boring and self-evidential. But there were also interesting  and creative ways to communicate about values and conditions of one's country. Here's some of my pickings:

Albanian bear:

Austrian bear was a musician:

Bolivian bear:

Bulgarian bear:

Canadian bear:

Chilean bear:

Spanish bear:

South African bear:

Georgian bear:

Indian bear:

Italian bear:

Japanese bear:

Cambodian bear:

Bear from Cape Verde:

Croatian bear:

Cuban bear had attitude:

A golden bear from Myanmar:

The bear from Paraquay held a crocodile:

Polish bear:

French bear:

Saudi Arabian bear:

Swiss bear:

Senegalese bear:

Hungarian bear:

Turkish bear:

Swedish bear:

Even South and North Korean bears were peacefully in Senate Square, hand in hand:

After I saw the exhibition I got to wonder why was a bear chosen as the object? Is it maybe because it is an international animal that lives almost all over the world? Or can the explanation be found in the symbolic meaning of a bear? I found out that bear has many meanings in different cultures. Bear can be easily associated with Russia, but it is also a meaningful animal in many other countries. It is the national animal of Finland, too. So bear is related to both east and west. In Finland a bear symbolises woods and forest. Bear can be also seen as a symbol of a gender: it can symbolise masculinity as well as feminity. A masculine bear has been seen as a symbol of cruelty, power, courage and durability. In gay world "a bear" is seen as an attractive male type. On the other hand bear can be seen as a mother god's symbol animal. Maternity and feminity are indicated in bear's warm fur, earth brown colour and the way it takes care of it's cubs. Bear has also been seen to symbolise lonelyness, isolation from others, fertility and the circle of life. Bear has been ultimately  a symbol of life, death and re-birth. In springtime, when bear wakes up from it's winter sleep, also the nature comes alive. And in the winter when bear is asleep, also the nature rests to be born again. Other meanings associated to bear are introspection, healing, change, spiritual interconnection, metamorphosis, reincarnation, shamans and whiches, mysticalness and mysteriousness, predicion, defence, revenge and wisdom. From these meanings can be found some explanation to why bear was chosen to represent living together in peace hand in hand, although some of the meanings of  a bear were contrary to the message intended (togetherness and peace). I enjoyed the visual messages in the bears sent from different parts of the world, but looking at the bears through the thought of what a bear symbolises gives me a new interesting perspective to the exhibition.