The statue was built by students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts beginning on May 27 at their University. It was built in hopes of bolstering the movement which "seemed to be losing some of its momentum; the students suspected that the government was waiting for them to tire and leave the Square". Working with a sense of urgency and expedience to create the model the larger statue would be based on, the students reworked an academic exercise built to demonstrate the effect of the distribution of weight on a piece: "a half-meter high clay sculpture of a man grasping a pole with two raised hands and leaning his weight on it." "The students cut off the lower part of the pole and added a flame at the top to turn it into a torch; they leaned the sculpture into a more upright position; they changed the man's face to a woman's, and otherwise added feminine characteristics to make the him into a her." They then transferred the measurements of the model, adjusting them for the larger proportion, to the foam that once carved became the monument. Jeff Widener, known for his iconic Tank Man photograph, took other photographs of the fateful rally, including two widely publicized images of the "Goddess"; one under construction, and another in context of the demonstration.