Exhibit Aims to Help Kids Cope with Violent World
12/15/2015
By Sheila Eppolito
The news is filled with it.聽
Terrorism in Paris. Shootings in schools and movie theaters. Lockdowns in cities like Brussels and Boston. For children, these events can be especially frightening, and 51视频 graphic design Asst. Prof. Ingrid Hess is determined to use art to help young people cope and understand these dangerous days.
鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to feel powerless when confronted by news of terror and war. Rather than telling myself there is nothing I can do to make a positive change in the world, I focus on art,鈥 Hess says.
鈥淎rt is a particularly effective tool when educating young children about peace. Even when children can鈥檛 read, they are able to understand visual images and create their own. Exposing children to images and teachings about peace helps them become peacemakers themselves,鈥 she says.
Hess鈥 solo exhibit 鈥淲hy Peace?鈥 is showing in Dayton, Ohio, at the Dayton International Peace Museum, a non-profit institution with a focus on inspiring peace in the United States and elsewhere. Founded in 2004, the museum honors the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.聽
The Dayton exhibit presents 22 cut-paper prints, each of which focuses the child鈥檚 attention on a subject 鈥 flowers, for example 鈥 that is accompanied by a verbal description of how a child might use the subject in peacemaking, like giving a flower to a friend. The show also includes a large panel depicting people of all races interacting peacefully with each other.聽
鈥淲hen peace is taught as an alternative to war, images and words from the battlelfield can be less frightening to kids,鈥 Hess says. 鈥淩elating peace and peacemaking to positive outcomes is a more age-appropriate and effective way to teach children.鈥
Hess鈥 museum exhibit is accompanied by a workshop where children and adults can come up with additional subjects for peace, create images of their own, and focus on how they can be peacemakers.
Hess has written and designed several children鈥檚 books including 鈥淭he Amish Alphabet鈥 and 鈥淪leep in Peace,鈥 which won the Rodda Award.聽
鈥淲hy Peace?鈥 will be at the Dayton International Peace Museum through January 2016.