Human Rights < Feature

San Francisco Exhibit Showcases Children's Art From Troubled Regions

The moon cries behind barbed wire, in a drawing by a Kosovo refugee child.

"Chechen children painted vivid watercolors of war scenes &but they also collaborated on a "City of our Dreams," where each child added a pretty house and yard."

Aid workers in the world's trouble spots have often given children paper and paintbrushes to help them make sense of their chaotic surroundings. The results can be heartbreaking, breathtakingly honest, poignantly optimistic - and often inspiring.

This August, Stephen McNeil of the Pacific Mountain Regional Office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a BAIDO member, pulled together children's art from war zones, refugee camps, and natural disaster areas around the world. The result was "Children Behind the Wire," an exhibit and speakers series at San Francisco's Meridian Gallery. Two bright rooms were hung with pastel villages smothered in barbed wire, crayon stick figures wielding crude machine guns, and dark bulbous watercolor helicopters.

From an isolated, debris-strewn refugee camp in Kosovo, ethnic Ashkali children drew various themes on the barbed wire that surrounded them: a sun crying over flowers growing through barbed wire; a moon weeping through its strands; a guitar wrapped in it and unable to make sounds.

"We were working there in 2000 trying to get the kids to express their feelings about all those areas being fenced off," McNeil said. "At the same time, they express a lot of hope and dreams."

A classroom of Chechen children, growing up amidst the Russian territory's brutal secession war, painted vivid watercolors of war scenes including a heartbreaking before-and-after illustration of Grozny's shelled apartment blocks. But they also collaborated on a "City of our Dreams," a bright, colorful town where each child added his own pretty house and yard.

"The biggest disaster that's sort of unreported is Chechnya," said McNeil, who has done relief work in many countries. "The Russian army and police are still brutally cracking down."

As a Muslim country with little immigrant representation in the United States, Chechnya has been easily tarred as a terrorist haven. But McNeil said he hoped an exhibit like this one could bring some much-needed balance to that image.

Many troubled regions were represented - the Palestinian occupied territories, Afghanistan, Burmese refugees in Thailand, Colombia's war-ravaged Putumayo state, Kosovo, Chechnya, Siberia.

For historical perspective, McNeil included a few pieces from long-ago AFSC aid projects: A German child's drawing expressed gratitude for a food package after the First World War, and a Japanese child captured the remoteness and silence of a World War II internment camp in the American Southwest.

The exhibit, from Aug. 10 to 29, included presentations by keynote speakers from relief, refugee, and human rights organizations, and activities for children such as sending cards and art kits to children in troubled areas. The sale of gift cards, posters, and books raised funds for relief organizations.

To learn more about AFSC's overseas aid efforts or the "Children Behind the Wire" exhibit, contact Stephen McNeil at (415) 565-0201 or email SMcneil@afsc.org.