Students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts erected a towering statue modeled loosely on the Statue of Liberty in Tiananmen Square, a defiant symbol for the pro-democracy protests that had gripped Beijing for weeks. The statue stood for less than a week before Chinese troops crushed the demonstrations on June 4, but it became one of the movement's most enduring images.
Built in just four days from foam and papier-mache over a metal frame, the Goddess of Democracy was assembled in sections by art students working through the night, smuggling materials past checkpoints and assembling the statue directly in the square under cover of darkness. Standing 33 feet tall and facing the portrait of Mao Zedong across the square, it was an unmistakable act of symbolic confrontation.
Students intended the statue to last only until the students' demands were met or the movement ended, understanding it as ephemeral even as they built it. Its resemblance to the Statue of Liberty was deliberate but not exact - organizers wanted something recognizably Chinese in spirit, a woman holding a torch aloft with both hands rather than one.
The statue stood for less than a week. When People's Liberation Army tanks and troops moved into the square on the night of June 3 into June 4, the statue was toppled and crushed beneath armored vehicles, along with the broader movement it represented. Photographs of the statue, both standing defiantly and later lying in ruins, became lasting symbols of the Tiananmen Square protests and the government's violent suppression of them.