Design

Yes, This Public Sculpture Is Really Made From Condoms

Hundreds of glowing, pendulous prophylactics liven up a drab square in Madrid.

How do you fill 800 condoms with water and light bulbs in one day? Simple: Enlist the nimble little fingers of kids.

The Spanish street-art group Luz Interruptus proved the feasibility of a child-labor assembly line for making public art for a recent installation in Madrid called "Lluvia Profiláctica Eue No Moja" ("Prophylactic Rain That Doesn’t Wet Anything"). The anonymous artists, who have a history of dealing out licks of political commentary in the form of light art, were upset that the government had dismantled a public swimming pool to make way for a posh shopping complex. So they decided to bring the memory of water to the neighborhood in the form of liquid-filled contraceptives, chosen apparently for their likeness to fat raindrops.