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NexAid's
Youth With A Vision performance space will be the
permanent home of the International Peace Tiles
mural.
NextAid
is currently planning for the ground-breaking of
the beautiful performance space, this will be the
highlight of the multi-purpose center project. The
walls are being designed around exhibiting the Peace
Tiles Mural. NextAid is very grateful for this opportunity
and thanks the entire Peace Tiles network.
The
International World AIDS Day Peace Tiles project
was spearheaded by Lars Hasselblad Torres, the founder
of Peace Tiles and Development Art (www.devarts.org)
and supported by ActAlive (www.actalive.org),
Art4Development Network (www.art4development.net),
NextAid (www.nextaid.org), Visual Voices (www.visualvoices.org)
and the Omidyar Network (www.omidyar.net)
These tiles are from
workshops in:
Dakar, Senegal
Rajasthan, India
Phuket, Thailand
Kenya
***
News Release ***
INTERNATIONAL
PEACE TILES PROJECT MARKS WORLD AIDS DAY WITH MURALS
CREATED BY CHILDREN IN AFRICA, ASIA AND U.S.
Montpelier,
Vermont--Release Date--On World AIDS Day, December
1, 2005, the visual voice of thousands of children
worldwide who are affected by, or at risk of HIV/AIDS
will be exhibited in communities around the world
and at three international mural locations.
Sponsored
by Development and Art through the Institute for
Social Ecology, the International Peace Tiles Project
seeks to raise awareness about the vulnerability
of children and youth to HIV/AIDS, and to provide
them with a dynamic means for self-advocacy and
self-expression. More than 500,000 children under
the age of 15 worldwide have died of AIDS and more
than 2 million children under the age of 15 are
living with HIV/AIDS, according to recent figures
from UNICEF.
Already
more than 1,000 children worldwide have created
Peace Tiles during workshops on AIDS awareness.
Peace Tiles workshops have been held for children
in communities across the globe, in countries including
Bangladesh, Cameroon, Costa Rica, India, Kenya,
Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda and the United
States. Each of the three international murals are
composed of individual wood panels (called "tiles")
produced by children in the countries participating
in the project. The tiles were sent to the Peace
Tiles project in Vermont where they were arranged
into murals.
Each
tile is an intimate, personal work of reflection
and expression. The painted surfaces of each tile
are covered with a myriad of images and objects
from the children's lives. On one tile from Thailand,
an HIV-positive AIDS orphan placed a currency note
left to him by his parents, expressing his hope
that other children with HIV/AIDS would have what
they need to survive. Children in Senegal , West
Africa , used bright beads to decorate the surface
of many of their tiles. Other children used seeds,
string, sand, magazine clippings, stamps and many
other materials and artifacts to create their compositions.
The
resulting murals are vibrant, inspired, and dynamic
works that bring together these "visual voices"
of children affected by HIV/AIDS around the world.
The
three international murals will be displayed on
World AIDS Day in the following locations:
•
Zasekhaya Market at the Newtown Bus Factory
, an artists cooperative studio, exhibition
and community space in the Newtown district of Johannesburg.
The exhibition is being coordinated by Artist Proof
Studio, Visual Arts and Crafts Academy (VACA), and
the Zasekhaya Market. South Africa was selected
as a mural location because it is home to the highest
levels of HIV infection, and the first place on
earth where AIDS mortality rates have surpassed
infection rates.
•
Soochana Kendra , Jaipur's famous
"information center," will house the second international
exhibition and celebration organized by Gram Bharati
Samiti, an association of rural women and youth.
GBS organized more than six workshops across Rajasthan,
a state in north India through which more than 600
children were engaged in HIV/AIDS awareness-raising
activities. India was selected as a site for the
international mural project because it is the place
on earth where AIDS expert expect the AIDS epidemic
to next explode.
•
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS ,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria (www.globalfund.org) in
Geneva , Switzerland was chosen as the third site
for an international mural because of the Global
Funds leading role in the global campaign to make
AIDS history. The Global Fund remains the world's
strongest institutional mechanism for the development
and finance of country-specific AIDS education and
eradication efforts.
One
of the International Peace Tiles Murals that will
be on display in South Africa, India and Geneva
at the Global Fund
Children
in Uganda make Peace Tiles for children in the Sudan
during a workshop, hosted by the Life in Africa
Foundation.
"The
Peace Tiles project empowers young people through
art to share their experiences with HIV/AIDS in
an effort to increase local and global awareness
about this disease," said Lars Hasselblad Torres,
the founder of Peace Tiles and Development Art.
"Each of the international murals represents the
individual stories of kids from all parts of the
world dealing with HIV/AIDS in their families and
communities."
To
create the Peace Tiles children cover wood "tiles"
with paint and photos, letters, scraps of cloth
and other artifacts from their lives that speak
to their personal experience with HIV/AIDS or their
knowledge of the pandemic. In addition to self-organizing
workshops in most countries, three artists traveled
on behalf of the Peace Tiles project to support
workshops in India and Thailand .
The
International World AIDS Day Peace Tiles project
is a product of a global collaboration of organizations
and networks spanning the globe. The World AIDS
Day effort was sponsored by Development and Art
(www.devarts.org)
and supported by ActAlive (www.actalive.org),
Art4Development Network (www.art4development.net),
NextAid (www.nextaid.org), Visual Voices (www.visualvoices.org)
and the Omidyar Network (www.omidyar.net)
***
End Release ***
CONTACT
For General Enquiries:
Frank
Walter, 202-299-0300, fwalter@impalacom.com
Lars
Hasselblad Torres, 802-229-0992 lars@tagstudio.net
For
more information go to: www.peacetiles.net
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