China Girl

At the beautiful Konstnärshuset (Art House) in the city centre there's a small but urgent, sad and beautiful exhibition - by artist Maria Ängquist Klyvare - on at the moment called China Girl. The exhibition revolves around the shocking fact that 50 million women are "missing" in China, thousands of girls are being literally eradicated each and every day. Murdered and neglected. Not considered as valuable as a boy, and this tragedy is ongoing still in this day and age.

Such brutality, the extent of ignorance and yes, pure ungraspable evilness, its painful to be faced with. Makes one shudder both in horror, despair and immense sadness. Read more here (both in Swedish and English) about this very flagrant form of gender discrimination and its far-reaching consequences.

For all its faults and flaws, such malicious phenomenas and cultural tides makes one very grateful for being born, loved, living and existing in this little country in northern Europe. Oh yes, there's much room for improvement here too, on many levels indeed, but all and all, as a society, we're blessed with the evident lack of such troglodyte behaviour without an ounce of compassion.

This pressing exhibition is on at Konstnärshuset until February 14th, then it'll go on tour throughout Sweden until 2009. Address is Smålandsgatan 7, open Tuesday-Sunday, free admission.