|
MONTHLY NEWS December 1996 Children Around the World Join "Kids' Guernica" Project |
Children across the world, including France, Japan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Korea, and the United States, are making a plea for peace on huge canvases, just as the artist Pablo Picasso did with his antiwar masterpiece Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
Dubbed "Kids' Guernica," the project originated with Art Japan, a Kyoto-based organization that produces art programs for children, in 1995. Tadashi Yasuda, who heads Art Japan, said he asked children around the world through the Internet to depict their images of peace on a canvas measuring 3.5 meters by 7.8 meters (11 1/2 feet by 25 1/2 feet)--the same size as Picasso's Guernica. Nine works have been submitted thus far by children from six different countries. |
Elementary schoolchildren in the Republic of Korea, for instance, drew a painting of children holding hands. Children from the earthquake-stricken city of Kobe portrayed the natural surroundings of their hometown in Hyogo Prefecture.
Yasuda, who said he hopes more children will follow suit, is planning to exhibit all submitted works at the Children's International Peace Mural Exhibition, scheduled for next year in the Kansai region. Further information about "Kids' Guernica" is available at: http://www.artjapan.com/
Photos: (top) Nepalese children pose in front of their own version of Guernica; (above) kids in Florida add finishing touches to their image of peace. (Art Japan) 
|