Medics To The World now in India

Unveiled in Riga less than two years ago, the sculpture "Medics to the World" has traveled a long way across Eurasia and been installed in the city of Bareilly, India, near the Deepmala Medical College.
The six-meter-high sculpture was unveiled on March 31 by the Ambassador of Latvia to India, Artis Bertulis, and its author - the sculptor, professor at the Latvian Academy of Arts, Aigars Bikse. He donated his work of art to the institution, and from now on it will be displayed in the yard of the school.

Aigars Bikse talks about his work: “This sculpture is a message to the future generations about the time and challenges we experienced. It will remind us of the significant role the doctors take up in our society. "

This is a historic moment when future uncertainty pervades our daily lives here and the more so in Ukraine where a war is unfolding. In this tragic moment the role of medical staff remains vital. The medics have been on the front line of this battle, working overtime and in stressful conditions.

At the opening ceremony, Artis Bertulis mentions: "The work of doctors will always be amazing and honorable, just as we saw during the pandemic, and as we see it today in Ukraine, where doctors save the wounded and risk their lives during the war."
The Medical Institute of northern city of Bareilly, located between New Delhi and Nepal and hosting nearly one million residents, has not been chosen at random. A specialized biosafety laboratory will soon be opened to find solutions for curbing global pandemics like Covid-19. A Deepmala hospital representative - Doctor Somesh Mehrotr – who first initiated this relocation, comments: “Students here at Deepmala will feel the passion with which the medics worked in those troubled times, and the sensitivity of a Latvian artist to have created it so magnanimously. The relocation of Bikse's masterpiece from one part of world to another is a living example of how hope and love know no boundaries.”

The sculpture "Medics to the World", first revealed in June 2020, was one of the first public expressions of gratitude of this type in Europe after the Covid-19 pandemic, which changed the lives of at least half of humanity. It is a public initiative, in the implementation of which, after an invitation of the sculptor, almost twenty companies took part, donating materials, tools, providing the artist with helpers, premises, transporting materials and the sculpture itself, as well as the installation of it. Sculpture is deliberately created in an impressive size to show that the people are very much like children when it comes to health problems - dependent on the care, attention and knowledge of the doctors.

Photos by: Vivek Arora

1st image - A group of hospital’s doctors next to the sculpture

2nd image - The ritual of scattering rose petals at the opening of the sculpture.