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M+, Hong Kong, © Danh Vo
Danh Vo 傅丹
We The People (detail) 我們人民（局部）
2011–2016
We the People is a one-to-one replica of the Statue of Liberty. The original monument, designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was a gift from the French republic to the United States in 1886 for the centenary of American independence. The title of Danh Vo’s work comes from the opening line of the United States Constitution, formulated in 1787. When he began the project, Vo had never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, but he had long been fascinated by its significance as a symbol of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. The statue stands on Bedloe’s Island—today called Liberty Island—in New York Harbour, the historic entry point for immigrants arriving in the United States by ship. The statue’s transnational history and presence in the history of immigration to the United States resonate with Vo’s personal experience. Born in southern Vietnam in 1975, he fled the country with his family by boat at the age of four, eventually settling in Denmark. Manufactured in Shanghai, We the People mimics the fabrication technique of Bartholdi’s original, with parts made individually in order to be assembled together later. Crucially, however, Vo insists that the approximately two hundred and sixty pieces that comprise We the People are never exhibited together as a complete sculpture. His decision to keep the statue in fragments dispersed around the world seems to reimagine the power dynamics of the contemporary world order.
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