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Special advisor for Kids' Guernica

 

                     

                  

   

   Spyros Mercouris (white hat) with the women of Kastelli and children painting the Cretan mural

 

 

Opening Ceremony of Kids' Guernica exhibition in Kastelli, Crete 2006

                    

                    Spyros Mercouris - translated into English by Anna Arvanitaki

 

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, and Spyros Mercouris receiving a gift from the Mayor of Kastelli

 

A few words about Kids' Guernica

                                                                            by

                                                                                                       Spyros Mercouris:

"Picasso, the giant in painting, has been followed by many little giants.

All these murals show that children know best how to express themselves with all their imagination. They conceive a world at peace and not one to be bombed from the air.

Picasso set an important tone when he painted Guernica. As expression of human pain, it does not fit into the one or other political category. Human pain comes from within and cannot be expressed by simple political images or symbols.

Today there are too many Guernica's in the world and too many innocent civilians have been bombed. It seems that only children are able to enter seriously a peace process as they still trust the other and do not need an enemy picture to justify their actions. They are free to go with their imagination into the future."

Spyros Mercouris

 

                 

                 Hatto Fischer, Stacy Koumbis, Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, Takuya Kaneda and

                 Spyros Mercouris in front of the mural from Chicago made by four different schools

 

                   

                  Spyros Mercouris in front of the Poiein kai Prattein mural "The war is over"

                  in Kastelli, Crete 2006

 

 

 

   

Kids' Guernica Exhibition at Zappeion Megaron in Athens

held 17 - 21 October 2007

 

Productivity of culture

Opening remarks by Spyros Mercouris:

"Within the Symposium we shall present the exhibition “Kids’ Guernica”. It is a movement of peace that started in Japan 1995, fifty years after the end of Second World War. Children from all over the world, including Japan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Martinique, Palestine, India, Australia, Georgia, USA, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece have taken part. The children express through paintings, their rejection of war and their desire for peace. These paintings are done in the same dimensions 7,8 x 3,5 m., as the original painting ‘Guernica’, by Picasso.
Picasso is a giant. Giant of the arts, of painting, of sculpture, but also a giant of thought. He could with his brush put on canvas all his artistic and political sentiments. Love, life, fear, death, and barbarism. Guernica has become a symbol of the horror of war.
Children and young people are also small giants of art. They paint spontaneously what they feel without being intimidated by various outside influences.
The imagination of children and of young people is fresh. They dream. They have visions. They feel and live intensely pain and joy. Their hand runs freely to paint their truth. The result is fantastic. Full of color and of expression.
Children from Izmir and Chios painted together. They don’t want war, they want peace.
The dialog between cultures starts with children."

Athens June 17, 2007

 

Spyros Mercouris with children at Kids' Guernica Exhibition

 

 

 

 

 

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