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'People cry over piles of rice' at art exhibit

Emily Coady-Stemp
BBC News, South East
BBC Two small piles of rice on sheets of white A4 paper. The one on the left is labelled "people born in the Farnham and Bordon constituency in 2023" and the one on the right reads "People who died in the Farnham and Bordon constituency in 2023". BBC
The show adapts to each location

An exhibit which imagines human population statistics in different sized piles of rice continues its global journey with a stop in Surrey.

Of All the People in All the World has been on display in Australia, Brazil and the United States of America, and adapts to each location and audience.

Stan's Cafe artistic director James Yarker said: "We explore the world through statistics."

The show was first made in 2003 and has toured a number of times each year since then.

James Yarker looks at the camera and stands in front of a table which has weighing scales on it and various measuring scoops. He is wearing a white t-shirt and has short grey hair.
James Yarker said the response to the show was the same across the world

The statistics depicted in the labelled piles of rice can include populations of towns and cities, the number of doctors, the number of people born each day and more.

"The amazing thing is that the response is kind of the same everywhere," Mr Yarker added.

"There's a real basic humanity behind the show and it works because people empathise with each other so you see other human beings' stories in the show.

"It sounds preposterous but you see people laughing and crying just looking at grains of rice."

The show opens on Friday at the Great Hall in Farnham Maltings and runs until Tuesday.

Lexi Walker looks at the camera and holds three bowls of rice in her hands. She is wearing a black t-shirt and standing in a room with a wooden floor and long black curtains hanging down one wall in the background.
Performer Lexi Walker said people were moved by the artwork

Performer Lexi Walker said, while setting up the exhibit in Farnham, that for larger populations the rice was weighed, with about 60 people represented in one gram of rice.

"It can get quite tricky," she added. "If it's a small population I'm weighing I might have to count it all by hand.

"The best thing is how moved everybody is when they come to see this [exhibit]."

Peter Glanville, chief executive of Farnham Maltings, said: "This installation has travelled around the world.

"As well as global statistics it's also very local, so we're hoping that there's going to be some interesting statistics about some of the places around Surrey as well."

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