Children of the World dream and paint about Peace.

Dreams and Imagination are needed to give shape to reality -

working towards the Chios Declaration of Peace.

Children do not merely dream, they imagine the future as something in which they can realize their dreams.

They see in their present life how adults have problems with themselves and how they live in a world full of imperfections: unemployment, sickness, war, destruction of nature and especially lack of human warmth. Children take up these problems but add their dreams and imagination to overcome such obstacles as they feel being responsible for everything.

There are children who have suffered under all kinds of abuse, physically, emotionally and mentally. They need to protect themselves differently from others but step first of all out of a silence which imprisons them. As victims of abuse they live in self denial and therefore beyond any human reality. Moreover they are victims of a conspiracy of silence which adults and the world throws like a dark cloak over them. The wish to destroy the innocence of children is linked to the fear that these imaginary witnesses will speak out one day as to what really took place. Thus the appeal to adults not to destroy the innocence of children and to let them express themselves freely in their imagination.

The philosopher Adorno speaks about conveying everything to the imaginary witness as a way to pass on the demand for truth and a truthful life in future. Painful experiences have been made during the Holocaust of Second World War; other, equally terrible atrocities in other wars and violent conflicts have led to abuse of children. The abuse of power relates directly to the abuse of children. Something manifests itself in such acts but only by going through these painful experiences traumas can be overcome. For that is needed the courage to speak out, not to remain silent. The best testimonies are art works through which children express their imagination. All of them express the wish not to be hurt by others nor to be exposed to violence and war.

In brief, by bringing together these messages of peace painted by children and documented by video, the Kids' Guernica exhibition will show how children uphold human dignity despite all odds working against them.

Kids' Guernica movement

The Kids’ Guernica movement extents formal art education by initiating bottom-up actions based on collaborative work as part of informal learning processes. Chios will be a place to reflect upon such informal learning processes and to look at the results i.e. what messages children are sending into the future through such works.

The paintings are all brought about by local action and through special Kids' Guernica workshops. Since bringing about such huge paintings (7,8 x 3,5 m as the original size of Picasso's Guernica) is a process, Kids’ Guernica means putting emphasis as well on how the children arrived at that particular painting. Most important are the questions children have when learning how to resolve conflicts with other(s) and in the world. Often life is perceived only as a struggle requiring soldier like qualities such as being fearless in the face of death but peace requires quite another strength and courage in order to be fair and just in all fields of society. More over the world needs to be confronted not with prejudice or hatred but with the full trust in the imagination so as to be able to question reality how it is while not subcumbing to cynicism as if there are no solutions. For this is needed self confidence but also trust in other people. It is when children can give their own meaning to growing up in such world, then they are free to mature into full responsibilities for what they going to do now but more so later in their lives.

POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN works closely together with the International Kids' Guernica Committee with Takuya Kaneda as coordinator

to continue the story of Kids’ Guernica with special focus on Lebanon for Chios May 2007
to draw attention to children with special needs e.g. in Chios will be shown two peace murals from India, one done by blind children, the other by children with special needs
to further art education not only inside but equally outside of schools as children need in this modern world a different environment if they are to grow up in a healthy manner
to work towards the Chios Declaration of Peace as part of the preparation for the Kids' Guernica exhibition in Athens, October 2007 in conjunction with the Symposium "Productivity of Culture" organized by the Network of European Cultural Capital Cities at the Zappion Megaron

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Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

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