Julian Assange spearheads funding drive for life-size statue of himself

The WikiLeaks founder has used the whistleblowing website’s official Twitter account to publicise a funding drive for the creation of a life-size bronze public artwork featuring himself, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, described as a “a monument to courage”.

The proposed statue by Italian sculptor Davide Dormino, entitled Anything to Say?, will depict the trio standing on chairs, with another empty seat beside them onto which members of the public will be encouraged to climb – allowing them to stand shoulder to shoulder with the whistleblowers. Organisers need £100,000 to complete the project, a sum they hope to raise by 1 January through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter. With just 21 days to go, only £19,360 has been pledged – perhaps explaining why Mr Assange chose to alert WikiLeaks’ 2.4 million Twitter followers to the campaign.

According to the Kickstarter page, the statue “is not a simple homage to individuals, but to courage and to the importance of freedom of speech and information”. “This is the reason for the empty chair,” it continues. “Each of us can climb onto it, however uncomfortable and vulnerable, and change our point of view. The work of art will travel from country to country and offer the opportunity for us to hear each other out and think.”