Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

Nagasaki Memorial Exhibition 6 - 10 2012

Tom Anderson reaccounted what experience he made when he visited that special memorial place in Nagasaki. He wrote:

“When standing there, a Japanese woman appeared suddenly beside him. She had signs of burns all over her skin and in her nose were tubes to breathe. She had suddenly appeared beside him. When she looked up to him, she smiled.  He realized she was one of those who had survived by miracle the atomic blast.”

Tom goes on to describe how much her smile unsettled him. After all he was an American! Suddenly he felt such pain, that he could no longer stand being there. Within one hour he was again on board of one of the bullet trains ready to leave Nagasaki.

Such human pain accompanies Kids' Guernica. It constitutes fore mostly the work of redemption, namely to let this pain come out. The human cry of anguish is often done in silence. It may be shown only by some tear drops in the eyes as seen on the left side of the peace mural from Lebanon. When students of Monique Kissel at Saint Denis University in Paris were doing their special mural, they departed from Picasso's cryptic description of human pain as manifested in the cry. They sought to work out that special human moment, to bring forth since usually it is a most intimate moment when the human soul cries out due to an unexplainable pain. It is like the soul having been harpooned and the body makes cart wheels through the airs not out of job but out of pain. What happens in such a moment is that the entire human being is revealed.

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