They say a true artist is prepared to suffer for their art. Five artists in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have been arrested after their art project almost went horribly wrong, the NL Times has reported.

A woman participating in the project had climbed into a box, which the four others layered in gypsum. According to the Rotterdam Police Department’s Twitter account, the “Artists were panicking when the gypsum became too hard.” Firefighters were quickly summoned after the woman couldn’t get enough oxygen through a straw, which had been inserted through a tiny breathing hole.

The remains of a failed street art project in which an artist nearly suffocated inside a sculpture. Firefighters had to rescue her. Photo courtesy of the Rotterdam Police Department.

Firefighters had to use heavy equipment to break up the thick plaster to extract the women from the gypsum block.

The five participating art students, including the women who had just been rescued from the ordeal were brought in for questioning ahead of potential charges of endangering a life. A police spokesperson insisted, “It does not matter that she herself chose to allow them to cast her in plaster.”

The artist couldn’t get enough oxygen through this tiny breathing hole in the sculpture. Photo courtesy of the Rotterdam Police Department.

There was no word on what the art project was attempting to portray. The unidentified participants could not be reached for comment.

It’s not the first time authorities have recently had to come to the rescue of a citizen trapped in a bit of public art. In June of last year, an American student was trapped in a statue of a giant marble vagina at the University of Tübingen in Germany because he reportedly “wanted to take a funny picture” (see 32-Ton Marble Vagina Traps US Exchange Student).