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NextAid's Youth With A Vision performance space is the permanent home of the International Peace Tiles mural.
NextAid has installed the mural of tiles in our beautiful performance space at the Youth With A Vision Center in Dennilton, South Africa. The wall of the main performance stage exhibits the collection of tiles that include 30+ international tiles as well as locally made tiles. NextAid is grateful for this opportunity and thanks the entire Peace Tiles network.
In August 2006, NextAid sponsored a Peace Tiles making workshop and community event attended by approximately 100 Dennilton community members. The tile making was coordinated by NextAid volunteer, Sonni Miccoci of San Francisco who spent 3 months living on-site and working with the youth. Tiles were made by Youth With A Vision members ranging in age from four-years old to over 70! The Dennilton-made tiles have since been displayed at the World AIDS Day, Dance 4 Life event in Durban.
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)
NextAid is displaying tiles 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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