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» 8:38AM THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 09'
Artist FRED WILSON: Chips off the old block!
-Understated, yet profoundly challenging- -Provocative, yet physically absent- -Your point of view vs. another’s- All are statements that ran through my mind as I observed a slideshow presentation from conceptual artist Fred Wilson. Bronx-born and Westchester bred, Wilson detailed his initial work of collaborating with local NYC artists to convert the second floor of a school building to a gallery. The project soon translated into something of a museum space which attracted a new type of audience---school groups and museum curators. Eventually, His reclaiming Egypt installation combined ancient Greek and Egyptian sculptures. The work is beautiful---each piece positioned against a pale, pastel blue wall. Though aesthetic in nature, it still beckons questions on race, history, and art perspective. Yet one of the most engaging installations was that of the “Mining the Museum” in which
» 3:03AM WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 09'
A Long Way Gone: A story of Redemption and Hope
" A LONG WAY GONE: A STORY OF REDEMPTION AND HOPE" by Ishmael Beah  © 1999 Giacomo Pirozzi. All rights reserved Last Monday, January 26th, I was fortunate enough to be invited by a dear friend to a Diversity series speech at Butler University's Clowes Memorial Hall in Indianapolis. Our guest speaker was Ishmael Beah. He was born in Sierra Leone in 1980, and after growing up in a peaceful home, his childhood was derailed at the tender age of 11 by an outbreak of civil war. Beah's family---his parents and two brothers---were killed in the war and he was forced to fight as a child soldier in order to survive. He was only 13 and fought brutal battles until being removed by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation center in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. The period of rehabilitation was a tremendous struggle due to the fact that the soldiers had become family for him. In a fortunate chain of events, Beah was later selected to speak at a conference at the United Nations in NYC about the devastating affects of the civil war on children in Sierra Leone. Later, he would meet his new mother, Laura Simms, a professional storyteller who would later adopt him in 1998. Beah would later graduate from Oberlin College in Ohio and continue his advocacy work to highlight the plight of child soldiers and children affected by war around the world. He has spoken on many occasions on behalf of Unicef, Human Rights Watch, United National Secretary General's Office for Children and Armed Conflict, and with UN panels. His new book, A Long Way Gone, depicts a riveting story of how violence transformed the landscape of his country and his journey in life. At the Butler discussion, Beah talked about how he struggled to regain his humanity and fought to maintain hope in a very hopeless situation. He said that if the boy soldiers found a rotten orange or a piece of old food to eat, then they would have hope that the following day would bring fresh fruit and food. His charisma and good spirit charmed the audience as he talked about his experiences while trying to attend school in the US. When asked for his papers and transcripts, he could produce nothing and stared at the receptionist in disbelief. Beah was surprised that often we do not understand the gravity of civil war. He reaccounted that in Sierra Leone during the civil war, your life started when you heard bullets---that is to say, if you were at the corner store and heard weapons, you did not return home to retrieve papers, you ran for your life. But my favorite point of the night, resonates with my recent trip to Zimbabwe. Just because a country experiences violence and the media depicts the entire nation in one aspect, does not describe the people of the country or characterize them as primative. More on Ishmael Beah: http://www.alongwaygone.com/ishmael_beah.html  |
