United Buddy Bears in Berlin

I now know the story behind the colorful bear statue we saw in one of the sidewalks of Berlin which I just fondly named as the Berlin Bear. Well, that’s what you get with surfing in the net; you end up with some interesting information. 🙂 The bear statue we saw is actually one of the United Buddy Bears.

A buddy bear (or friendship bear) is a painted sculpture made of fiberglass about two meters in height.

The buddy bears were displayed in previous art exhibitions in Berlin (2003 and 2006) and Warsaw (2008) with the motto: “We have to get to know each other better; it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully.” The exhibition also went on global tour and was hosted in Hong Kong, Sydney, Tokyo, Warsaw and other cities.

The United Buddy Bears exhibition at Bebelplatz, Berlin-Mitte (Photo credits: Wikipedia)

The United Buddy Bears’ message is about the art of tolerance, to promote international understanding among different nations.