Haifa, Israel 2008

Haifa mural 2008

The Summer Camp is under the auspices of
Development Unit and Youth Coordination
The Committee for Educational Guidance
For Arab Students
CEGAS

Background

Three students, Christina Gossmann, Joe Hauck and Thayer Hastings worked in a summer camp of Palestinian children of Arabic families with the parents holding Israeli citizenship.

Takuya Kaneda, international coordinator of Kids’ Guernica in Japan, donated a canvas the same size as Picasso’s Guernica (7,8 x 3,5 m) as this is the key characteristic of Kids’ Guernica actions.

Contact with the students was made through Poiein Kai Prattein. Prior to going to Israel, Thomas Economacos and Hatto Fischer discussed with the three students what they could do with children who live in Israel but their parents being Arabs with Israeli citizenship.

A prime aim of this action could be described as a wish to build bridges of peace between Israel and the Middle East, fore mostly between Israelis and Palestinians. Hence it was important to discuss in anticipation of some hard conditions what can be done to further a bottom-up peace process. This included how to talk about injustices being inflicted while avoiding at the same time the reproduction of enemy pictures? Reference to other peace murals of Kids' Guernica became one of the key guidelines.

At first the three students were uncertain whether or not they could undertake this effort. But once they were there and had brought along with them the canvas, everything altered the moment the children realized the space given by such a canvas.

Children beside the canvas

First footsteps on the canvas

It transformed the interaction with the children and as the reports showed a very valuable experience indeed was made possible.

First report by Cristina Gossmann

The summer camp was a unique experience that I am proud and happy to have had. It was not easy though, of course there were difficulties with the language barrier and since the children's age ranged from 4 to 12, it was sometimes hard to find something interesting to do for everyone at the same time.

In the beginning, I was concerned that I might not be able to connect with the children the way I wanted to because we could barely communicate verbally. After a week or so I realized that language is only a small step in communication. We did communicate in many other ways and understood each other. It was beautiful to feel so close to these children who come from a completely different background and experience than me.

At times we also had to discover some unfortunate miscommunications with the organization we worked with but they were grateful for our help and generally supportive when we needed help.

The Kids' Guernica painting was introduced to the children through a brief overview of the original and some historcal background in form of an interactive presentation. After the presentation we split into smaller groups and started collecting ideas around peace. What does peace mean and how would you represent it?

We started off on the actual canvas in the third week by having them run on the canvas in groups of three or four and paint on their feet in order to explore the space (see first three pictures).

Later on we let 6 to 8 children come on the canvas. The groups then each had 2 minutes to draw whatever they wanted wherever they wanted on the canvas, also to explore the space (forth and fifth picutre).

Once they felt more comfortable with the space we started actualizing the ideas. One idea that came up was to draw a little praying boy in the middle of the canvas with candles next to him.

Later on the children thought the boy with the candles should be located on a world.

Two hands in the colors of the Israeli (right) and Palestinian (left) flag should be reaching from both sides of the canvas towards the world with the boy and candles.

This left us with space in the corners. As it can be seen on the four last pictures that show the end product, there are two peace doves on the upper left corner with a sun that says peace - salem. Under it, one can see the Wall which is built around Palestine by the Israeli government. In front of the Wall stands Handala, a cartoon figure by Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali who created cartoons that depict the complexities of the plight of Palestinian refugees from approximately 1975 through 1987, when he was assassinated as he walked towards the offices of Al-Qabas newspaper. He died in the hospital on August 29th. His murderer has never been apprehended but speculations say that it has been the Israeli government that is responsible for his death due to his brutal and honest criticism.

I would like to emphasize at this point that putting this character on the Kids' Guernica painting was an idea by the children. I personally was really impressed and touched by this political statement coming from children of such a young age.

At the upper right corner one can see an eye with splashes inside (which represent missiles). Tears are dropping from the eye over the hand with the Israeli flag onto the lower right corner. There, one can find an olive tree branch and again, the Wall which stands for the Occupation.

The painting turned out to be strong and impressive and everyone was extremely proud when we exhibited it on the last day of the camp. It was a lot of work and took a lot of repainting but it fit in perfectly with the mission of our camp.

Second Report by Thayer Hastings

The mural went well. The children had a good time painting it and so did we. It took a long time to complete, but we managed to finish by the last day of camp at which we displayed it and took pictures. By the end it was not many kids that worked on it. A few at a time would find a revival of their interest and work on it for periods lasting about an hour, then new kids would also become interested. We ended up doing a lot of the touch ups ourselves late at night; the children often stepped on what they had already done. In the end it was a fulfilling experience. Some of the ideas the children had ended up on the canvas and many did not. We actually had trouble with some of the adults at the center we were working at. The mural has an Israeli flag on it and some of the adults were offended and asked us why we put it up on the mural and why it was being displayed in their space. We tried to explain to them that firstly, these ideas were not ours and that the mural is not ours, but the children's. Secondly, we tried to explain that the mural is hope for a future and not in support of the present.

So that you have an idea of what it looks like: in the center of the mural is a globe of the earth with three candles and a praying boy on the front of it. To the right of this is a hand reaching towards the earth with an Israeli flag painted on it. Above this is an eye crying with rockets in the center of the pupil. The tears drip down to a puddle at the bottom of this side of the painting. There are two olive branches next to the puddle. On the left side is a hand reaching towards the earth from the other side with a Palestinian flag painted on it. Above this is a sun which has written peace and salam and is bordered by two doves. Below the hand is the separation wall which continues behind the earth and reaches to the olive branches on the other side. In front of the wall is the figure of Handala. I'm not sure if anyone familiar with this, but it is very popular in Palestinian culture as a symbol of resistance. It is a Palestinian boy, which was the signature of a Palestinian cartoonist who was assassinated in the 70's.

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Haifa, Israel 2008