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BROKEN CHAIR

18 August - Broken Chair settles in Place des Nations

The giant chair mutilated by an explosion has been created out of Handicap International’s desire to mobilize states and the public opinion to ban anti-personnel mines.

"The idea was to attract the public's attention by creating a powerful message that cannot be rejected by Geneva authorities. To speak of such a sensitive subject, one has to go through a symbol." -  Paul Vermeulen, co-founder of Handicap International Switzerland.

Few months after its installation, Broken Chair should have been dismantled in December 1997 during the signing of The Treaty of Ottawa, which prohibits the acquisition, production, storage and use of the anti-personnel mines.

The renovation of Place des Nations threatens of Broken Chair. "While for the architects, the artwork integrated perfectly their visual concept of the renovation of the square, pressure for its removal came from certain international spheres." - Paul Vermeulen.

At the initiative of Handicap International, a support movement has come together in order to return Broken Chair in Place des Nations which had acquired a worldwide notoriety.

February 26 – The return of Broken Chair

Beyond the debate about its future, Broken Chair returns to its original location due to its popularity. 

"You don't get rid of symbols so easily. Its return had provoked heated debate at the heart of international organizations. But a wide support has made Daniel Berset's work an icon in the fight against mines and cluster bombs, as well as a place of expression of all injustices." - the daily newspaper Le Temps.

Broken Chair for Cluster Bomb Victims

Handicap International decides to extend the symbolic force of the artwork to support the process of banning cluster bombs, which have been later banned by the Oslo Treaty in December 2008.

A New Fight for Broken Chair :  Explosive Weapons

Handicap International decides to expand Broken Chair’s mission. As part of its campaign « Stop bombing civilians! », the monument advocates for the desperate cry of massacred populations by military violence, particularly when explosive weapons are involved in populated areas.

As the first witness to the damages caused by explosive weapons and true to its founding revolt against weapons that kill civilians, Handicap International paid tribute to the millions of men, women and children who have died in the shadows of war, by symbolically inaugurating the monument to the Unknown Civilian.

Following the announcement made by U.S. government to resume the use and storage of anti-personnel mines, Handicap International organized  an awareness campaign under Broken Chair to call on the Ottawa Treaty States to use all their influence to get the United States to reverse this outrageous decision.