{"id":4862,"date":"2012-11-14T05:30:10","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T13:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=4862"},"modified":"2012-11-15T06:56:13","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T14:56:13","slug":"child-war-art-exhibition-opens-eyes-and-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/11\/14\/child-war-art-exhibition-opens-eyes-and-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"Child war-art exhibition opens eyes and minds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine a childhood where you fall asleep every night wondering if you\u2019ll wake up alive, praying that your home will not be targeted, and fearing what you\u2019ll have to face the next day. Imagine waking up every morning and looking out your window to see dead bodies, bullets flying, bombs in the air, and looks of distress everywhere. These are the thoughts and worries that go through the minds of children in conflict areas almost every day.<\/p>\n

Children in Gaza know all about being caught in the middle of a warzone. And now their images are available for all to see in the art exhibit A Child\u2019s View from Gaza.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This drawing, by an unidentified child, depicts dismembered Palestinians lying on the road (image provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Victoria art professor Robert Dalton focused his PhD dissertation on children in warzones and their graphic drawings of what they\u2019ve been exposed to. Dalton has done extensive studies on this topic and how therapeutic drawing can be for children growing up in these circumstances. And, unfortunately, children drawing what they see in times of war is nothing new.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first children\u2019s war-torn art I saw was a collection I saw in the \u201980s that was gathered by Canadian relief workers at refugee camps in Central America,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The relief workers handed out art materials to keep children busy. The children tended to draw vivid experiences that had been troubling for them. This helped them address their inner demons and start the path to self-recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t remember ever being so moved by an exhibition as this body of work by children who had first-hand experiences with civil war, so I began to focus my interests in this area,\u201d says Dalton.<\/p>\n

When Dalton did his PhD at Ohio State University, he wanted to see what children\u2019s drawings were like from children who hadn\u2019t experienced war compared to those who had.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy seven-year-old son, like many other boys that age, was interested in the G.I. Joe phenomenon during his very masculine gender development phase, so I targeted other children his age who were also in that phase,\u201d says Dalton.<\/p>\n

The Gulf War began during Dalton\u2019s research; he noticed that because America had troops in war, children changed the style of war drawings they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pre-Gulf War drawings were very much like a military forces square-off, quite similar to a sporting event,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter the Gulf War began, the drawings were less about combat but more about \u2018USA vs. Iraq\u2019 and \u2018we\u2019re going to win,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Dalton gives an example of one girl who began drawing about war after the Gulf War began. Her drawings had lots of emotion in them, with people weeping, distraught about the violence of war. She didn\u2019t understand how people could harm each other, so she turned to drawing to deal with her feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a pivotal moment when we realized that the children shifted from drawing about war because of gender identification to drawing as a way to deal with real-world situations,\u201d says Dalton.<\/p>\n

After this study, Dalton rallied to get children in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan ledger paper and art supplies from the Canadian military contingent. They asked the children to draw a world they wanted to live in, and they got results that they hadn\u2019t expected.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This drawing, by an unidentified child, show Israeli helicopters and tanks destroying a city (image provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe never asked these kids to relive their horrors, but as it turns out, they couldn\u2019t think ahead until they had already dealt with their present and past,\u201d says Dalton. \u201cAs a result, we got some very tragic drawings of violent eyewitness experiences that they had chosen to draw themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Dalton received surprising results, he decided to show this work so that people could understand how much it was affecting the Afghani children. He toured schools in Victoria with the art and explained that these children couldn\u2019t picture our world, considering that things like playing soccer and flying kites are banned there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the school touring, we started an exchange program, similar to pen pals, where Canadian and Afghan children would send art they created back and forth to each other,\u201d says Dalton. \u201cThe Canadian children sent over hopeful pictures, and as a result Afghani children sent back much more joyous pictures with beautiful things like birds and flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalton says it\u2019s important for us to see how children perceive the world because as citizens of the world we should feel a sense of responsibility and recognize that we can do better as adults. Frances Everett, representative for Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, who are bringing the exhibit to Victoria, agrees with Dalton that this is an important matter for us as Canadians to address.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe images in A Child\u2019s View from Gaza<\/em> are graphic,\u201d says Everett, who adds that the situation in Gaza is particularly difficult because the conflict isn\u2019t over. \u201cThese children let out a lot of their inner feelings and thoughts through their art therapy. It\u2019s important for people to see how the war is affecting these children, and we hope our exhibit will get people thinking, talking, and researching more into how we can help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun College political science instructor Mona Brash is concerned about the effects that war has on children. She says that children are easily influenced and generational beliefs and views can grow stronger the longer these conflicts are not resolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf negative feelings are imprinted in these children\u2019s minds when they are young, then there\u2019s a chance that they will carry these thoughts as they age, and particularly carry thoughts of revenge,\u201d says Brash. \u201cImagine how this could impact relations between Israel and Palestine when these children are adults and become the decision makers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brash, Everett, and Dalton all agree that the example that\u2019s set for children is imperative to our future, because children\u2019s values are what will determine how we proceed in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen children make friends and develop a sense of compassion it means well for our future,\u201d says Dalton. \u201cI think we\u2019re living in more enlightened times with mass media and travel. I think the barriers of hostility and misinformation will break down and I hope this collection will play some small role in moving us forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Child\u2019s View from Gaza
\n<\/em>Until December 4 (reception November 15, 7 pm)<\/strong>
\nA. Wilfrid Johns Gallery (MacLaurin Building, UVic)<\/strong>
\nevents.uvic.ca<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine a childhood where you fall asleep every night wondering if you\u2019ll wake up alive, praying that your home will not be targeted, and fearing what you\u2019ll have to face the next day. Imagine waking up every morning and looking out your window to see dead bodies, bullets flying, bombs in the air, and looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-issue","category-november-14-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4862"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4968,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions\/4968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}