In making this little cushion, Vanilla Beer tried to avoid many possible traps.

One the one hand was the danger of making a soft and friendly car, playing on the cartoon image of a *happy fun car* carefully implanted by manufacturers and Disney-land investors.

On the other was the overreaction of demonizing the image; Vanilla Beer could have created a design using fangs, blood, skulls and bones. She chose instead a design that would integrate with the work as a whole. Hence the cushion has the distinctive shape of a car with no specific features, yet the rust-red hint of the shape of the tyres indicates the possibility of blood.

Vanilla Beer chose to ignore the exhaust pipe and pollution aspects of the vehicle rather than over-complicate the image; she was nervous also of evoking the gas chambers and trivializing the horrors of Hitlers policy of genocide.

Der Volksstuhl is currently on display in Vanilla Beers’ Gallery, Esperaza, Aude, France.