The sculpture made by Pedro Pires for an art festival in Portugal, titled “14.000 Newtons”, a large-scale skull made of 140 orange life vests, which is installed in a park in the city of Viseu until this summer.
The sculpture is part of a project about migration that started in 2016 after a trip to the Greek island of Lesbos, where Pedro Pires did voluntary work (helping refugees and migrants on the shores of the island, working with the ONG ERCI) and collected different objects related to the migration, such as parts of boats, emergency golden blankets, etc. “14.000 Newtons” refers to the buoyancy capability of the 140 life vests that form the sculpture. The eyes are made with black rubber that was found in Lesbos, cut from a dinghy that arrived full of refugees while Pedro was in the island.