The Rescue, 2009.
On April 25, 2009, students gathered in large cities all over the world to send a message. They willingly abducted themselves from their every-day life to call on politicians and those who hold power to address the issue of Joseph Kony's child soldiers in Uganda. At Queen's Park in Toronto we saw over 2000 people come to set up camp and one by one, politicians, people of influence, and film crews came to show their support and rescue us by using their voice to say what is happening to these abducted children is wrong. It is a violation of basic human rights and a horrible, great injustice that cannot be ignored by us...the rest of the world.
   | It was an honour to be asked to prepare a book of messages and images to send to the Invisible Children organization on behalf of Toronto supporters.
Even more than that was experiencing what it was like to be an event artist. We spray-painted a large-scale piece during the rally to capture the moment, and express through art what the Rescue encompassed. I gathered various children's items - clothes, toys, book pages, etc - hammered them onto plywood, and saturated them in military camouflage colours until they were unrecognizable. The caption at the bottom reads, "hidden not forgotten".  |
After this experience, I am now starting to explore the idea of becoming an event artist. As an anti-oppressive social work student and as a mother I aim to love justice and show mercy in whatever community we find ourselves in - to challenge systems and recognize individuals and groups who do not hold power, or have a voice in society. For them, I would love to publicly create and use forms of art to express a struggle and promote acts of compassion.
If you are interested in featuring an artist at an event, let me know: beth@deeperthanwar.com |
All content copyright Bethany Hardy.
