14 DAY TRIAL // Those who think the rabbit in “Alice in Wonderland” is one really odd appearance might want to take a step back and label the creature as pretty much in touch with reality after learning that a bunny has turned the ear of a Nelson Mandela statue in Pretoria, South Africa into its beloved burrow.
Truth be told, the rabbit took up residence in the statue's ear not out of its own will, but because it did not really have a choice.
Thus, the bunny is not a real hopper, but one made of bronze, and was placed inside the statue by two sculptors by the name Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren.
NPR tells us that, when these two artists were commissioned to create the giant statue of the South African leader, they asked that they be allowed to sign their work.
More precisely, they wanted to engrave their names on the trousers worn by the bronze Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, high officials who commissioned the statue did not approve of their plan.
Despite being refused, Andre Prinsloo and Ruhan Janse van Vuuren did not give up on their dream to somehow personalize the statue, and decided to take matters into their own hands.
The best that they could come up with was to sculpt a bronze rabbit and hide it inside the statue's ear.
This way, their work was marked, and they could sleep at night knowing that they did manage to sign the statue, just not in a way that people expected them to.
What's interesting is that the sculptors’ choice of animal was not accidental. On the contrary, it appears that they opted for creating a bunny because they had little time at their disposal to complete the statue, and because the word “haas” in Afrikans means both “rabbit” and “haste.”
The rabbit inside the statue's ear is so petite that, despite the fact that the statue was set in place on December 16, shortly after Nelson Mandela's funeral, it was only recently when people noticed it.
And they only did so because the two sculptors decided to break the silence and share their story with the rest of the world.
“You need a long lens or binoculars to see it. During the molding process, a lot of people had seen the statue up close and nobody noticed it,” artist Andre Prinsloo told the press in a recent interview.
The country's high officials were not all that happy to hear about Nelson Mandela statue's peculiar accessory, and are now planning to have the rabbit removed. They promise that they will do so without damaging the statue's integrity.
All things considered, it might not be such a bad idea if, while they're busy pulling the rabbit from its burrow, they keep an eye open for other creatures that might be lurking in the statue's nose or the like.