IMAGES OF SWEDEN’S culture minister cutting a cake depicting a black woman in a way which implied the woman was being genitally mutilated has sparked controversy and calls for her resignation.
Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth was participating in an art installation by the artist Makode Aj Linde on World Art Day at a Stockholm museum on Sunday, the Local reported.
The artist, who said on Facebook that the installation highlighted the practice of female genital mutilation, featured as the head of the cake and cried out as the cake was cut:
(Video uploaded by YUNGandWAVEY)
Adelson Liljeroth was among a group of people photographed smiling and laughing as they cut into the genital area of the cake.
Footage and photographs of the event and of the minister’s participation led to the National Afro-Swedish Association to call for the minister’s resignation. A statement from the group described the event as a “most tasteless racist spectacle”.
Spokesperson Kitimbwa Sabuni said that the minister’s participation in “racist manifestations masquerading as art” could only be interpreted as either her participation in a museum ‘prank’ or evidence that she has bad taste on racism issues.
The Guardian reports that the minister told Sweden’s TT news agency that she had been invited to speak at the event about artistic freedom and the right to be provocative. She said she was then asked to cut the cake.
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