Silent Crowds (9 Photos)

Nobody Here Moves

One statue is a monument. Put dozens or hundreds of them together and you get something stranger: a crowd that never says a word. Some are clay or stone, some iron or plaster. One crowd was made of ice, on purpose.

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🌊 “Another Place” — By Antony Gormley on Crosby Beach, England 🇬🇧

This crowd keeps its distance: 100 cast-iron figures spread over about 3 kilometers (2 miles) of Crosby Beach, all facing the sea. Each one is cast from Gormley’s own body.

💡 Iron Fact: Each figure weighs about 650 kilograms (1,430 pounds). They came to Crosby in 2005 and were meant to move on, but in 2007 the council decided they would stay for good.

More: Sculptures at the Seaside

📷 Photo: Chris Howells / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

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💼 “Follow the Leaders” — By Isaac Cordal in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪

Small cement men in suits stand in a puddle, the water up to their chins, and keep on with their meeting. Cordal made them in Berlin in 2011; online they are known as “Politicians Discussing Global Warming,” a name he supports.

💡 Street Fact: Cordal reproduces the figures with silicone molds and leaves many of them on the street, where cleaning crews and weekend thieves are their worst enemies.

More: Isaac Cordal on Street Art Utopia

🔗 Follow Isaac Cordal on Instagram

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🏺 Terracotta Army — Lintong, Xi’an, China 🇨🇳

Clay soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder in the trenches of Pit 1, with a clay horse at the front. They were made to guard the tomb of China’s first emperor, and farmers drilling a well near Lintong found the first pieces in 1974, Britannica says.

💡 Clay Fact: More than 7,000 pottery soldiers, horses, chariots and weapons have been dug up so far.

More: Ancient Treasures Discovered by Accident

📷 Photo: Gary Todd / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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🐱 Lucky Cats — Gotokuji Temple, Tokyo, Japan 🇯🇵

Hundreds of white lucky cats fill the shelves, packed so tight there is no room left between them. Each was left at the temple in Tokyo’s Setagaya ward by someone whose wish came true, so the crowd only grows.

💡 Cat Fact: The story goes that a white cat beckoned Ii Naotaka, a lord of the Hikone domain, into the temple just before a thunderstorm broke. Out of gratitude he had the temple rebuilt and made it his family temple.

📷 Photo: Niwrat / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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🗿 Ahu Tongariki — Easter Island, Chile 🇨🇱

Fifteen moai stand in one row on their stone platform. All of them were toppled long ago, and a 1960 tsunami swept the site inland; they stand again after a restoration in the 1990s carried out with the help of the Japanese crane maker Tadano.

💡 Stone Fact: The tallest of the fifteen weighs an estimated 86 tons, the heaviest moai ever moved and set up on a platform.

📷 Photo: Voltamix / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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👻 Plaster Ghosts — By Jakub Hadrava in Luková, Czech Republic 🇨🇿

White hooded figures sit in the pews of St. George’s Church as if the service is about to start. Hadrava, then a sculpture student, cast them in plaster over fellow students who sat as models.

💡 Church Fact: The 14th-century church was abandoned after part of its roof fell in during a funeral in 1968.

📷 Photo: Juandev / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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👉 “The Illuminated Crowd” — By Raymond Mason in Montreal, Canada 🇨🇦

Sixty-five figures lean forward together on McGill College Avenue. The man at the front points at something the rest of us can’t see. The figures are polyurethane and layered polyester, in a light ochre that stands out against the blue facade behind them.

💡 History Fact: Before it came to Montreal, the crowd was part of Mason’s 1985 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It was unveiled on McGill College Avenue on June 25, 1986.

📷 Photo: Jeangagnon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🧊 “Minimum Monument” — By Néle Azevedo in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪

A thousand small ice figures sat on the steps of Gendarmenmarkt in 2009, row after row. They were made to melt, and they did.

💡 Ice Fact: Azevedo has set out these melting crowds in cities from São Paulo to Tokyo and Paris; an installation usually melts within about 30 minutes.

More: 1,000 Melting Ice Sculptures in Berlin

🔗 Follow Néle Azevedo on Instagram

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🙌 “The Family of Man” — By Mario Armengol in Calgary, Canada 🇨🇦

Ten thin figures, each about 21 feet (6.5 m) tall, stand in a ring among Calgary’s office towers. They were made for the British Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal.

💡 Expo Fact: After Expo a businessman bought them at auction and donated them to Calgary. When the figures arrived, nobody had any directions for putting them together, so city staff chose the ring themselves.

📷 Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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