Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth - Hatto Fischer - Ποιειν Και Πραττειν

Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth - Hatto Fischer

Introduction

The imaginary line of thought behind Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth

The most recent exhibition in Olympia, Sept. 2 - 6, 2015

Entrance to the International Olympic Academy in Olympia

The exhibition in Olympia came about thanks to Spyros Mercouris who insisted that these peace murals are shown at the Symposium "The need of a constructive dialogue", 1 -7 Sept. 2015. He organised it even throughout the month of August, that is when no one is around since then everyone is on holidays.

The question of timing is also a matter of opening up a window of opportunity. But even if he has a strategic concept on how to proceed, he needs still to make this connection to Kids' Guernica through Poiein kai Prattein.

Poiein kai Prattein became involved in Kids' Guernica thanks to a cooperation with PEACE Waves in Torino. At the youth festival they organized together, so as to let the youth articulate its concern with regards to an Olympic Truce not really kept whenever Sommer or Winter Olympic Games are held, there was made the discovery of youth painting a peace mural on a canvas the size of Picasso's Guernica.

- About Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth / Poiein kai Prattein by Spyros Mercouris
"The non-governmental organization, Poiein Kai Prattein “Create and Do” enriches the symposium with the exhibition “Kid’s Guernica - Guernica Youth”. The basic idea is that children paint a peace mural on a canvas the same size as Picasso’s Guernica. Picasso is a giant. Giant of the arts but also a giant of thought. He could with a brush put on canvas all his artistic and political sentiments. Love, life, fear, death and barbarism. Guernica has become a symbol of the horror of war. Children and young people are also small giants of art. They paint spontaneously what they feel without being intimidated by various outside influences. The imagination of children and of young people is fresh. They feel and live intensely pain and joy. Their hand runs freely to paint their truth. The result is fantastic. Full of colour and of expression. Children from Izmir, Turkey and Chios, Greece painted together. They do not want war, they want peace. The dialogue between cultures starts with children.

Spyros Mercouris

Athens 15.8.2015

responses to the two murals, especially that of the Chinese delegates, and the significance of Peace Murals and the Olympic Spirit in relation to Picasso's Guernica
about a possible future collaboration and continuation of the exhibition: Hatto Fischer with Sarika Baheti, organiser of the Delphic Youth Games in India: Goa 2016 (see her presentation thereof in Thematic Circle C: Olympism and Culture)

Iman Nouri in Tripoli, Lebanon writes: „I am so thrilled that the mural keeps walking...I simply cannot believe it...“ (12.9.2015)

The canvas

- the size as a challenge to any artist, but which children and youth easily resolve

Memories of World War I:

After visiting Verdun, the battle ground of WWI, and there discussing with a historian the reasons for the First World War, and after discovering in an abandoned house still remnants of those who were killed back then, the children returned back to Gezoncourt (near Mets and Nancy in France) to paint a mural depicting not only monsters, but posing as a theme an important question. The question is the title of the mural: "The other: Enemy or friend?"

"The other: enemy or friend?" 2010

The Grand War - Theatre de la Vallee in France 2015

- what do children learn today about this war?

- European Union since 1945 and the Nobel Peace Prize: the mural in Ecouen

- war as an adventure or what Thomas Mann said about those who joined the war with enthusiasm just because they wished to escape boredom (in: Magic Mountain)

- Jules and Jim: that incredible film

- Christmas on Rimny Bridge as told by the teacher of physics at Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa, Canada

- the reflective framework: 2014 - 2018 and 1914 - 1918

In search of identity