By: Sam Doak
April 21 2023
No, this statue was not recently unveiled in Oxford
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
This statue is actually "And Life Is Over There," a work located in the Netherlands.
Claim ID 5e3ec7d5
Context
An image of a statue is circulating on social media, with users falsely claiming the work has recently been unveiled in Oxford, U.K. The statue shown has feminine facial features, three arms, breasts, and a penis. This has led to outrage among some online, who appear to believe the work to be related to ongoing debates in the United Kingdom concerning the rights of transgender people.
One tweet, which appears to have popularized this claim, includes the photograph with the caption, “a beautiful afternoon in Summertown, Oxford, deeply honoured to be asked to unveil 'Woman of our times,' a moving graphic representation of modern femininity. Huge thanks the Lib Dem Cherwell Council for their love and financial support.” While the original post appears to have been deleted, it has been copied verbatim by numerous Twitter users, screenshotted, and shared on Facebook.
The claim that the photograph in question shows a new statue in Oxford has been repeated frequently throughout April 2023, and received high engagement. One such post, shared on Facebook on April 12, has been liked over 4,300 times and shared more than 1,300 times. Logically Facts has found that it does not show a recently installed statue in Oxford as claimed.
In Fact
Logically has found variations of this claim dating back as far back as May 2022. Furthermore, a reverse image search reveals that the statue has never been displayed in the United Kingdom.
The work shown in this photograph is actually called “And Life Is Over There” by the sculptor Femmy Otten and is on display in the Hague. According to the website of Stroom Den Hagg, a center in Holland dedicated to architecture and visual arts, the work incorporates “references to nudes from classic Greek sculpture and is both male and female.”
Reuters reports that the sculpture has been installed in two locations in the Hague since its unveiling in 2017. Logically Facts could find no reliable record of the work displayed at any location in the U.K. A comparison of the photograph being cited as proof of its existence in the U.K. and those shown on Stroom De Hagg’s website shows it was taken in the Hague, not Oxford.
The Verdict
The statue in question is entitled “And Life Is Over There,” not "Woman of our Times." The photograph currently circulating was taken in the Hague, and there is no record of this statue being displayed in the United Kingdom. This claim has therefore been marked as false.