This is Graham. Graham might not look like an oil painting, but he has the body necessary to survive a car crash. Unfortunately, however, Graham is not real. He is a sculpture created as part of a road safety campaign organized by the Transport Accident Commission in Victoria, Australia. The statue was created by artist Patricia Piccinini, along with Melbourne Hospital trauma surgeon, Christian Kenfield. Graham is built with the body shape and structure needed to survive a high speed car accident.
Kenfield said:
“The head has a much bigger skull so it acts like a bicycle helmet. Graham actually has no neck, he has no cervical spine that can be fractured in a whiplash injury. These ribs are super ribs absorbing much more of the force”
Graham is made of fibreglass, silicone, resin and human hair, and will sit in the State Library of Victoria for the next three weeks. Visitors to the library can use immersive augmented reality technology to delve under Graham’s skin and see how he is different to normal human beings.
The message of the campaign is a simple one. This is how you would need to be built to withstand a high speed crash. You are not built like this, so drive carefully. Graham might not look very nice, but his message is an important one.
