Wacky kids' Global Peace Project:Wassookeag School children (wassookeag.org) , under the direction of Debbie Bell, has participated in the Global Art Project for Peace for some years now http://www.global-art.org/ Through a central clearing house, art projects are exchanged between schools from countries around the Globe, all with one common purpose and theme: to promote Peace through art.
The basic idea of our project was to change perceptions of the globe, to shake up commonly held beliefs and too-familiar images. For us, this started with a non-U.S.-centric orientation of the continents. When seen from an unexpected angle, the Earth can really look like an alien planet! So we picked the wackiest conformation we could think of. (It takes a little work to find each continent upside down and sideways.)
The next concept was to increase peace & love with our neighbors by connecting the continents. We built a hole in each of the seven continents, and one additional hole in the area of Iraq, where our country is at war now. If all the continents were connected and we could visit and play with everyone all the time, could we really still have wars?
We asked the children what else they thought would promote peace. Somewhat surprisingly, they responded "helping the Earth by recycling". So we made stands for our Globe designed after our local Bangor Recycling bins. The children had never heard of slogans, so they made visual messages: they came up with the idea of recycling all war; recycling sadness; blood; tears; bombs (some of their ideas we had to leave up to the viewers imagination...)
We made two large hollow hemispheres (four feet in diameter) with chicken wire and paper-mâché. The Recycling bins are themselves recycled boxes. We made some people and animals from Sculpee, and some from pieces of copper wire soldered together.
The inside of the Earth was the subject of some heated debate amongst the students. They had very well-defined (and strongly held) opinions about these highly conceptual areas: would it be dark inside the Earth or light? Would a black world convey peace, or conflict? Would a red world be a dangerous place, or would magma convey the idea of love and understanding? This exercise helped them learn to express their opinions in a non-hurtful matter, but did not, alas, resolve the question: so inside the earth represents both a hot magma world and a crazy expressionistic world of cool dark images, all related to peace or the lack-of-peace.
The final test of perception was the portrayals of the countries and continents. Each child focused on one continent, but they also worked together and supported each other's ideas. Their teacher Debbie taught them about each continent and shared stories, photos and geological data about each region. But then it was up to each child to interpret their regions. It so happens that all the children at the Wassookeag have had experience in imagining the colors that represent a given person, or a concept. For example, they have discussions about what color the number 2 would be, or if a particular boy would be purple, or rainbow? Each child did a visual representation of their continent based on their own feelings and thoughts about that place. The results are surprising, sometimes funny, sometimes touching, but certainly not the world I learned about in geography.
Here is a video of us making our peace project. You can hear the children singing some crazy lapine languages they often speak or chant just to (further) confuse adults. You can also hear a song about "Tomorrows": Molly tried to write a happy song, but she is afraid it sounds too sad. I don't know. In the video, you can see the world visiting the HOPE festival in april; and also resting in it's temporary home at the Children's Library.
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5:15The Missing Peace Art Exhibitionby c100tibet4,500 views
well thts like paper macheing
XxHollisterluvxX1 2 years ago
definitely! it was a little hard getting the newspaper to stay on the inside of the planet (it tries to fall down), so we had to be very patient and just do a little till it dried, then do more
unclejohnthezef 2 years ago