The Aftershocks Exhibition
SARAJEVO
IPC Gallery, Aug. 2003
NEW YORK
United Nations, Nov. 2003
LONDON
The Frontline Club, Dec. 2003
SAARBRÜCKEN, GERMANY
Arts Connect Hearts at Patton-Plusczyk Foundation, June, 2005
AFTERSHOCKS: Art and Memoirs on Growing up in the Aftermath is the result of three CMCE programs, Portrait of a Siege Generation in Sarajevo, Youth Choosing Peace in Sarajevo and Lukavica, and the Trauma Relief Project in New York City.
The collection includes drawings, paintings, collages, sculpture, journal writing, poetry and documentary video created by Bosnian teenagers who as children lived on opposing sides during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, and elementary school students who witnessed the World Trade Center disaster in New York.
In our programs, these students were able to use the process of creating art to build bridges, collaborate and heal the wounds of the past. The exhibition examines the reverberations of catastrophic events in their lives. Works on the subject of memory, daily life, hope, and fear about the future appear side by side. The viewer discovers how these concepts interpenetrate in the creations of young people who have experienced or witnessed extreme violence.
First shown in August 2003 at the International Peace Gallery in Sarajevo, the exhibit then moved in November 2003 to the United Nations Headquarters in New York and to the Frontline Club in London in December. The exhibit was extremely well received at all venues and has had numerous mentions in press ranging from CNN, the BBC, NY1, the New York Times and Voice of America to Russian TV and Corriere della Serra.
We hope that additional sponsorship and funds can be raised to take the exhibit on to France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Balkans next fall. Artwork and writing from the collection can be viewed on the UN’s Global Teaching and Learning website, the CyberSchoolBus, at www.cyberschoolbus.un.org/aftershocks.
From 3 Ladies Series, by Eldin Smajlovic, Sarajevo
Silence
by Sara Babic, Lukavica
There is no noise around me like there used to be.
I can hear only silence now.
I’m looking at my hands like someone else’s.
I see I’m traveling through time.
I see only distance.
I hear some forgotten voices.
I feel sounds from well-known melodies.
And, it’s just like I’m flying with wings
But that’s an illusion.
I’m dreaming about the lost town of my fantasy
Where freedom exists like the only word.
I have just this small hiding-place,
I know there is no wonderland.
Sometimes nights are so long,
I dream about ancient times.
Then I look at my world of sorrow
And I know I’m alone.