Until July 31st
Amnesty International presents BHOPAL – A SILENT PICTURE, a multimedia public art installation. The work is set in a 40-foot container and being timed as the biggest sporting event opens today in London.
Bhopal remains the world’s biggest industrial disaster. The leakage of 42 tons of deadly MIC gas by the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal (India) on the night of 2nd December 1984 exposed 528,125 people, immediately killing 2,259. More than 25,000 have since died from the after effects. The images in this forty-foot multimedia installation have been shot at the now sealed Union Carbide Plant that continues to poison the soil, air and water of its surroundings.
They portray an eerie emptiness that has multiple resonances about death and disappearance at the hands of faceless machinery. However, unlike any other mass murder, the perpetrators of this crime continue to walk free. The victims – largely poor people, continue to be denied adequate health care or fair compensation. Worse, they are forced behind a veil of indifference and enforced silence. This installation also hints at this state of affairs with a shroud bearing names and file numbers of some of the victims’ that envelops them in anonymity.
*This Public Art Installation has traveled to New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai in 2011; Over 85,000 people visited this project in Mumbai in a week alone, making it the largest ever-viewed public art project in India. YouTube
Amnesty International UK The Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard London EC2A 3EA
