A pair of prosthetics for the Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo, a celebrated masterpiece of Greek sculpture dating from about 130 B.C., preserved in the Louvre and notoriously armless, has received a pair of prostheses. Actually, no surgery on the real statue, but on a life-size replica that has been installed (with its prostheses), in the Louvre-Rivoli metro station in Paris. This is a project conceived by the association Handicap International to raise awareness of the issue of disabilities: in fact, the association has launched a fundraiser to 3D print prostheses to donate to those who cannot afford them. It is estimated that there are one hundred million people in need of orthopedic equipment in the world today, especially in developing countries where access to prosthetics is very expensive and difficult.

Thus, to raise awareness of the issue, ten statues from every era, missing a limb or body part, supplemented with prosthetics have been appearing in Paris since yesterday: the goal is to support the Body can’t Wait campaign, which has already provided 3D-printed prosthetics to nineteen people in Togo, Syria, and Madagascar and will soon come to cover the needs of another hundred people in India.

The operation was made possible thanks to the free support of a production team and the Hérézie Agency, which handled communications. Handicap International intends to make the operation go viral (the hashtag is #Bodycantwait) so that the message spreads as widely as possible. To make a donation one can go to the association’s website.

A pair of prosthetics for the Venus de Milo

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