As the number of displaced people surges, an ‘Inflatable Refugee’ in Barcelona sparks questions

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A 20-foot-tall “Inflatable Refugee” is on display at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house. It was created by Belgian visual artists Schellekens & Peleman in 2015 following the refugee crisis in Europe. They hope it will spark debate about the plight of refugees. Opera goers will be confronted with the outsize dimensions of the figure, made of the same material as the delicate rubber boats used by smugglers to send migrants to European shores. The artistic intervention coincides with an alarming number: 120 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict and other protracted crises, the U.N. refugee agency announced Thursday. That’s equivalent to the population of Japan.