Few days back I had written about the living statues in my other blog A Slice of Art & Design. What a coincidence that a very similar technique was being used in one of the popular malls in Dubai last week. A few stores had come together with a Radio station (who runs a few FM channels in different languages) to host a competition. The competition was quite uncommon (I shall not comment if I liked the idea or I did not) for this city where there is a constant attempt to inject new ideas to promote consumerism.
This particular competition was called “Spot the real model”. There were a few (5 to be precise) model who were posing with the mannequins in the display windows of the stores spread all over the mall. It was exactly the same act as one of those living models. The only difference probably was that they were working under a corporate or a modeling assignment and not as street performers.
All one had to do to claim a prize (shopping vouchers) was to be one of the first three persons to spot the live model and run and report to the organizers. You would then receive a shopping voucher and you could also request your favorite song to be played over the fm station.
But for the models, it was not easy. Seating or standing there in a frozen state and people taking picture might not be all that fun. I may be guilty of taking this picture…. but I did it just for this blog. I tried asking for her permission before taking the picture using sign language. I took her silence to be her consent. Probalby I am mistaken.. probably they were enjoying the whole Paparazzi attention and were well taking in their strides. After all its all in a days work as they say.....
