|
| War and Peace | | A lot has changed since my last article “War and Websites”. Prabakaran has been declared dead. Celebration in the Sinhalese areas, tears in the Tamil areas. | | More... | |
| Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher and U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake met with several U.S.-based organizations representing members of the Tamil diaspora to discuss the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka. | | More... | |
|
| Exhibition |
 |
|
|
 Exhibition |
| In the Stream of Consciousness |
Sunshine in a Tear Drop- An Exhibition of Refugee Children drawings, and Photographs of the Children who drew them. 500 Sri Lankan Tamil refugee children, a famous fashion photographer, and a bunch of Chennai's young and happening men and women all coming together for a cause.
 Sunshine in a Tear Drop, a bit of a paradox? Well that's what it is. So much pain and yet so much beauty. Moments captured on camera, Drawn in a child's own hand... life, love, family, emotions. The turmoil of growing up as a refugee, the scars of living through a war, the dream of returning home, and the yearning for Peace. A child's dreams and aspirations capsulated in an expression through Art. The Beautiful faces of the children, some aglow with aspirations, some full of doubts, pain, some bubbling with laughter, mirth, innocence, some frightening expressionless, blank, some with a startling look of emptiness.
I can't forget their faces because I've never seen some of these expressions on children's faces before. I've come across many children from vulnerable groups, (filming documentaries and working with various social causes), the children affected with Aids we used to visit, the kids in the Tsunami affected villages in India and Sri Lanka, the child laborers bonded laborers and juvenile home children I recently interviewed for a film, but none of them had quite the same expression. I still can't put my finger on it, which is probably why I can't forget their faces. Or maybe it's because when Sunder (the photographer) and I met them they were all normal children, and it was only when we started looking at their drawings and asking them about what they had drawn, did the pain slowly slip out. The insecurity of living in temporary shelters for 18 years, the insignificance of being born with no country, in a refugee camp, the yearning for peace in Sri Lanka so they can finally go home…. and then the resilience. They smile again, the pain recedes, and their back to being children.
There was this beautiful 7 year old girl with sunshine in her eyes, but her smile was like the Mona Lisa, it wasn't happy or sad. She had drawn a picture of the sunset. Behind the Drawing she had written in Tamil "In the peaceful evening time the Sun goes Home, when will we go home to our mother land?" A boy with haunting eyes had drawn himself in a cage, he called the drawing "My Life", he was 15, he cried when I started to talk to him about his life. There was one child in particular I really wanted to meet, his drawing had no colour, it was divided into 5 pencil sketches 'Rape, Bomb blasts, Arrest without cause, Violence and Peace. Peace showed a grave yard filled with tombstones. He had written something on the lines of 'the only place one can find peace is in the tombstone'. I imagined the child who drew this to be dark, angry and brooding, but when I finally met him he was sweet, sad and a little like a lost puppy.
 I guess this is why we're doing this exhibition, because these children are suffering in silence and there are thousands more like them in Sri lanka and millions of them all over the world in Gaza, Afganistan, Kashmir ...I'm making a film called "My Island is Bleeding".. . there's a line in the opening "When Elephants fight, it's the grass that's trampled". These children are the grass that's being trampled, while governments, terrorists and religious groups wage wars. Then there's the kid with the sparkling white teeth and yellow shirt. His drawing was "Dreams for My Future" – he had written "When I grow up I want to be a Computer Engineer" he'd drawn himself in front of a computer, and another person beside him whom he has tagged as "My P.A". Sunshine in a Tear Drop?
-In Hope and For Peace,
Poongkothai Chandrahasan.
Along with OfERR (an NGO working for 25 years in the 117 Government run Refugee camps in Tamil Nadu) and the support provided by many friends and well wisher the Refugee Children’s Drawings and Photographs will be exhibited at The Madras Terrace House.
Date: 10th - 18th January 2009.
Venue: Madras Terrace House, 15, Sri Puram, IInd Street, Royapettah, Chennai, India
For Further details contact: p_chandrahasan@yahoo.com, or oferr@gmail.com
|
Exhibition of Refugee Children's drawings
|
25 yrs of living in exile makes the Sri Lankan Refugees one of the oldest refugee populations in the world, second only to the Palestinians. For some of the children, refugee camp life is the only life they have ever known. Others who have come more recently (A new influx of 20,000 refugees arrived on Indian shores after the collapse of the 2002-2005 cease fire) have lived through war, hunger, fear, constant bombings and turmoil.
OfERR organized a drawing competition in which over 500 children from the age of 5-15 from 117 camps all over Tamil Nadu participated. The Madras Terance house is hosting the exhibition from the 10th January to the 18th of January.
This exhibition is the canvas by which 500 Sri Lankan Refugee children express themselves to the world at large. Topics include:
"My life so far....",
"My future Dreams",
"An incident that affected me"
"PEACE"
20 of these drawings will be touring the United States of America in the spring of 2009, premièring at a New York Museum and then traveling to various prestigious Universities in America, as part of the Redrawing Resistance Exhibition 2009 (Re-Drawing Resistance is a collection of artwork, photography, and video installations from South Asian survivors of violence) organised by the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington, Vermont.
The 20 drawing that have been chosen to be part of the New York Première are also displayed at The Madras Terance house, with the photographs of the children who drew them and their thoughts on the drawing. 15 sensationally powerful Photographs of Refugee life will also be displayed shot by one of Chennai most famous lens man Sundar R.
The Goethe-Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan has expressed interest in hosting this exhibition at the Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai, in April 2009.
Objective of the Exhibition
The Drawings done by the refugee children are heart breaking, while most children draw "mommy, daddy and me" kind of happy pictures, these children draw pictures of bombing, guns, houses on fire, boats full of people on rough seas. The drawings give us a glimpse into the troubled minds of these children, and are an expression of their memories, aspirations and anxieties. We hope that by exhibiting these drawings we will create awareness about the 80,000 Sri Lankan Refugees living in India, in hope for Peace in their country, in hope to return to their motherland.
Venue: Madras Terance House, Date: 10th - 18th January 2009.
|
Select the category to view
|
|
