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Maid in China

Published 11.09.08   13:39 

The famed Little Mermaid statue looks set to become part of the Danish pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in China She's been blown up, decapitated and doused in paint and now the Little Mermaid statue needs a holiday, albeit...

She's been blown up, decapitated and doused in paint and now the Little Mermaid statue needs a holiday, albeit a working one.

The organisers of the Danish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 see the Little Mermaid playing a key role in promoting Denmark. With the support of the City Council, they plan to remove the statue from her perch at Langelinie and send her to China for six months.

The proposal has received support from the Economy and Trade Ministry, the mayor and a number of political parties in the city council. The council owns the statue and a vote in November will decide the fate of the statue in the project.

The family members of the statue's late designer own the copyright to the little lady and are upset by the plan.

'They called us over the summer to tell us about the plan. We said no and said they could make a copy and send it to China instead, but to our surprise they chose not to,' said Erling Eriksen, grandson of Little Mermaid sculptor Edvard Eriksen.

Eriksen told MetroXpress newspaper that he feared a lot of tourists would be disappointed that Denmark's iconic statue would be missing from the waterfront from May to October in 2010.

Mike Lippert of the 2+1 Ideas Agency, one of the members of the pavilion consortium, told The Copenhagen Post that should the Little Mermaid be moved, they would put a stand-in in her place.

'We are working with three Chinese sculptors to get their interpretation of the Little Mermaid. Their work will be displayed at Langelinie during the six months the statue is away.'

The Copenhagen Post