Smurfs believe inequality
Driven by a questioning of why the “glass ceiling” or “bamboo ceiling” exists in a certain group’s professional career, I carried out an analysis of male and female directors as well as the ethnic groups of the board members in the largest multinational corporations in Europe.
In this project, I use the blue color from the classic Smurf cartoon character to represent the core of power — a group that is hard to break into from the outside, sharing only one color, and where “males are central, females are peripheral” ideology implanted.
Finding: In Fortune’s Global 500 list of the European top 25 largest multinational corporations, there are 306 board members: 74% are male and 26% are female. If the person is mixed-race I put him or her into the coloured group, though this still makes the non-white category very low. In total, there are 3 Asian males and 6 Asian females, 2 black females and 2 other non-white male directors in the 25 corporations. Altogether the non-white group takes 4% in the total of the 306 directors.
![](https://format.creatorcdn.com/12da60be-d63d-427c-bb0c-a031fe386246/0/0/0/0,0,1300,868,1300,550/0-0-0/91167f2f-d760-4853-add0-76f673153d09/1/1/_DSC4190-Edit.jpg?fjkss=exp=2040696201~hmac=7de87ad523ca025d8a2d386e49dd95431616937316be1e9c3afc5a6268587a6e)
Left: 306 Board of directors, 2018 Pigment prints on Hahnemühle Fine Art Photo Rag
Right: 306 Board of directors, 2018 Acrylic painting on canvas board
![](https://format.creatorcdn.com/12da60be-d63d-427c-bb0c-a031fe386246/0/0/0/0,0,929,1300,929,550/0-0-0/44294d1b-2e2c-4b70-89d7-bd03ce20ef3e/1/1/_DSC3810-Edit-2.jpg?fjkss=exp=2040696201~hmac=618611315658418e78d7c0405a82910a3413556376e28dbf3ea7217715fa5d33)
![](https://format.creatorcdn.com/12da60be-d63d-427c-bb0c-a031fe386246/0/0/0/0,0,1300,929,1300,550/0-0-0/0002db99-eaae-4b80-bc01-a31ca716694c/1/1/_DSC3670-Edit-Edit.jpg?fjkss=exp=2040696201~hmac=d9818d9002c9266ecc706370b3cf7544e51968794d43dababdf149789a90b3db)
![](https://format.creatorcdn.com/12da60be-d63d-427c-bb0c-a031fe386246/0/0/0/0,0,1300,868,1300,550/0-0-0/958d03d7-74aa-403c-b4ce-9715da537666/1/1/_DSC4225-Edit-2.jpg?fjkss=exp=2040696201~hmac=7de87ad523ca025d8a2d386e49dd95431616937316be1e9c3afc5a6268587a6e)
Installation of "Smurfs believe inequality"