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En breve
As part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, marchers built huge pyramids of shoes to visualize the number of people still being killed or injured by landmines in lapsed conflict zones.
In the post-Cold War era, in lapsed conflict zones from Cambodia to Mozambique, anti-personnel landmines were maiming and killing ordinary people every day. They blew off their victims’ legs, feet, toes, and hands. They drove shrapnel into their faces and bodies. Because anti-personnel mines are indiscriminate and stay in or on the ground long after wars end, the vast majority (70 to 85 percent) of victims were civilians, not soldiers — and all too often they were children simply playing in the fields near their village.
The pyramid of shoes worked because it was visually arresting, emotionally powerful, and easy both to participate in and to understand.
In 1992, the International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL) was formed to address this global problem. Their goal: a world free of anti-personnel mines. Linking together groups concerned with children, women, veterans, the environment, human rights and arms control, and picking up marquee supporters like Princess Diana, the campaign spread across the world, growing into a powerful network spanning more than 100 countries.
Because landmine violence was scattered around the world, in remote lapsed warzones no longer in the headlines, it was critical to find a way to visualize the issue to the public in Western capitals where rising public sentiment could pressure key governments. One tactic, half-way between an artistic vigil and a media stunt, and used most notably at mass rallies in Paris throughout the 90s, was to build huge, symbolically powerful pyramids of shoes. In at least one case, the pyramid contained 18,000 shoes, representing the more than 18,000 people who were being killed or injured by landmines every year.
With an understanding that the feet and legs of innocent civilians were being blown apart by landmines the world over, every attendee to the march was asked to bring an old pair of sneakers (see: PRINCIPLE: Simple rules can have grand results). As each marcher passed a central location, they paused for a solemn moment, and added their shoes to the pile. Over the course of the march, the pile grew, eventually becoming a mini-monument to the horrors of landmines, symbolically capturing the scale of the suffering and the human cost of not banning this evil weapon. More than any speech or protest sign could, the sculpture and the ritual moments around it brought the issue home, adding not just gravitas, but also a powerful photo op that made it onto front pages across the world (see: PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work for them).
Eventually, the Mine Ban Treaty (banning the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel mines) was adopted in September 1997. As of 2017, there were 162 state parties to the treaty, and 30 countries have become mine-free. In 1997, the ICBL and its founding coordinator, Jody Williams, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Teoría clave
The best creative actions — whether a direct challenge to power or a more symbolic expression — tend to have a simple, organic logic that more or less explains itself. The pyramid of shoes certainly had that quality. With a simple caption — ”These shoes represent all the feet and legs and lives taken by landmines around the world” — its symbolism struck home immediately and dramatically, for participant and observer alike.
Principios clave
Because landmine violence was happening in remote corners of the world, many of which had long ago passed from the headlines, it was largely hidden to Western media and the public. It was crucial, therefore, to “make the invisible visible.” The pyramid of shoes was a clear, concrete, and human-scale visualization of the need for action. And, crucially, given the way modern media works, it could be conveyed with a single, powerful photo-op.
Though there was little pomp or ceremony, the simple act of adding a shoe to the pile was suffused in the power of ritual — offering participants and observers alike an emotional container to reckon with the tragedy at hand. For some, it evoked the tradition of Jewish mourners placing a small stone on their loved one’s gravestone; for all, it provided a moment of reflection, gravitas, solemnity — well-matched in tone to the tragedy being highlighted — in what might otherwise have been a boisterous and ephemeral march.
Bringing an old worn-out pair of shoes or sneakers to the march was an easy ask. Adding them to the pile was a simple enough instruction that everyone could follow. And yet for many, that moment was profound, and the sculpture that arose from the accumulation of each of these simple acts told a big, complex story that captured the scale of the problem.
In the end, the final pile of shoes called to mind the sorted piles of clothes, shoes, and other personal effects of those killed in Nazi concentration camps, still on display at Auschwitz. Though many observers likely didn’t register it consciously, and the organizers didn’t draw attention to it explicitly, knowing that one holocaust would unconsciously evoke another was part of the wisdom and power of this action.