Living statues coming to London square

LONDON, July 5 (UPI) -- Participants in an upcoming public art exhibit in London say they are ready to pose as living statues in Trafalgar Square.

Participant Tom de Freston told The Sunday Telegraph he will portray the late Italian artist Michelangelo Caravaggio in artist Antony Gormley's living statue exhibit at the London square.

"Caravaggio seems a bit over the top for these days so I wanted to send it up a bit," de Freston said of his part in the exhibit, which begins Monday.

"I am going as a giant pigeon," communications student Heather Knight said. "It's not a protest about the ban on feeding pigeons in the square. I just thought it was appropriate and fun."

The Telegraph said 15,000 people applied to be in Gormley's exhibit, but only 2,400 were chosen to serve as living statues on the square's fourth plinth for an hour at a time.