Broken Flesh

Broken Chair is a monumental Sculpture out of wood of the Swiss artist Daniel Berset carried out by the carpenter Louis Geneva. It represents a giant chair with the foot broken east is exposed on the Place of the Nations, with Geneva.

Composition

Broken Chair is made of 5,5 tons Bois and 12 meters is high.

It symbolizes the refusal of the anti-personnel mines and the weapons at submunitions, and the call of the civil society with the Heads of State in visit with Geneva.

History

Broken Chair is an idea and a project of Paul Vermeulen, cofounder and director of Handicap International Suisse. The sculpture was set up by Handicap International in front of the main entrance of the Palais of the Nations to Geneva in August 1997 where it was to remain only three months, to the signature of the Convention of prohibition of the anti-personnel mines in December 1997 in Ottawa.

Following the success which it meets it is always in place. Because of work of refitting of the place of the Nations it was removed in 2005 followed of a debate on opportunity of preserving this work vis-a-vis the buildings of the the United Nations. It finally is reinstalled at the same place on February 26th, 2007 after work of refitting of the place.

Broken Chair calls all the States with universalization and the implementation fast and complete of the Convention of Ottawa Ratified by 40 countries it is coming into effect on March 1st, 1999, becoming a international legal instrument.

The reinstalment of Broken Chair in February 2007 was officially dedicated by Handicap International to the support of the new process of Oslo which will end in 2008 in the signature of an international treaty on the prohibition of the weapons in submunitions.

Work was the property of the Genevese sculptor Daniel Berset until 2004, year when it in transfer the property to Handicap International.

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