How One Swedish Artist Has Paid Tribute To Covid Deaths

People are making use of the Covid-19 situation in many value creating ways. Here is another novice example of creativity put to good use...

Geert van der Vossen felt compelled to do something
meaningful for those departed in the fight with Covid-19 virus

The pandemic left the world speechless. Locked indoors, everyone came down to the same level. There were no conglomerates and no bigger economies that could kill or defeat this unknown enemy. What could defeat it would be human spirit to respect and nurture the very nature we have been working against. 

Everything got redefined- the way we consume news, the way we eat and work and the way our children are now being educated. It also redefined our perception of medical staff and their invaluable contribution of keeping the world going, as we struggled to survive each day without a vaccine in sight. 

Amidst all this, an artist in Sweden was feeling compelled to show his solidarity and sympathy for those who had lost their lives. This is artist Geert van der Vossen who has created a floral tribute to Sweden's coronavirus patients. For every patient lost to war against an unseen enemy ( I like to call it that) he has created one flower and planted many such metal flowers to the tune of 6561 flowers till date. 

He checks daily deceased numbers on the Swedish health authority statistics site and then go onto make the most exquisite flowers, each different from the other. 

For Vossen, it  was a way to show respect for those who had lost their lives- more so, because once someone was infected, he or she felt like an untouchable, someone who you could not come near or would not want to be near, due to the fear of being infected. Sweden has been one of the very few countries to have followed very strict lockdown rules. 

Maybe this could justify its more than 4 million infected cases and some 8000 plus deaths. Like Sweden, Netherlands has also tried to use herd immunity as its natural defense against the virus. As of now, only 46 percent Swedish are willing to be administered with a Covid-19 vaccine. General consensus is that the self styled protective model has failed and the nation is now ready to take on vaccination. But walking the talk has become difficult as the government grilled the herd immunity model into the people's minds. 

Sweden has recorded far higher death rates than its Nordic neighbours, while suffering a similar economic hit. Even the country’s king thinks it has “failed”.