The World Turned Upside Down (sculpture by Mark Wallinger)

The World Turned Upside Down is a sculpture by the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

-winning artist

Mark Wallinger Mark Wallinger (born 25 May 1959) is a British artist. Having previously been nominated for the Turner Prize in 1995, he won in 2007 for his installation ''State Britain''. His work ''Ecce Homo'' (1999–2000) was the first piece to occupy the ...

, on Sheffield Street, London, within the campus of the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. The name ''World Turned Upside Down'' comes from a 17th-century English ballad. The sculpture, measuring in diameter, features a

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe ...

resting on its

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

and was unveiled in March 2019. It reportedly cost over £200,000, which was funded by alumni donations.

Disputed content

The artwork attracted controversy for showing the island of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

as a sovereign entity, rather than as part of the

People’s Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. After dueling protests by students from both the PRC and ROC and reactions by third party observers (which included the President of Taiwan, Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the co-chairs of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group in the House of Commons) the university decided later that year (2019) that it would retain the original design which chromatically displayed the PRC and ROC as different entities but with the addition of an asterisk beside the name of Taiwan and a corresponding placard that clarified the institution's position regarding the controversy. A group of students repeatedly vandalised the globe for its omission of the

state of Palestine Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), Legal status of the State of Palestine, officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state (polity), state located in Western Asia. Officiall ...

, a non-member observer state in the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

Gallery

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World Turned Upside Down, The London School of Economics Cross-Strait relations Outdoor sculptures in London Vandalized works of art in the United Kingdom 21st-century sculptures 2019 in London

Disputed content

Gallery

See also

References