Human Rights Education: The 4th R, Human Rights Education
and the Arts, vol. 7 No. 1, Winter 1996.

Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture


Art For Freedom and Educating For Freedom Lessons

Mary Beth Bride, a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, spent this past summer in the Philippines teaching art and human rights in rural communities. She founded the Educating For Freedom (EFF) and Art For Freedom (AFF) projects, which involve members of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth community in a variety of art and human rights efforts. EFF’s activities include a book drive for a community in the Philippines and a college scholarship program, as well as plans to send people into the community to educate about human dignity and human rights. AFF’s work includes campaigns to protest human rights violations through art by creating exhibits, conducting workshops for children, and collecting art supplies to send to Amnesty International chapters in the Philippines.

While working in the Philippines this summer, Bride developed lesson plans to use with the young people there. Some examples of her approach to integrating human rights education and activism with art education are described below. For more information, contact Mary Beth Bride at 23 Robison St., New Bedford, MA 02740.

Children’s Rights for Child Activists

Description: The workshop has many variations with the materials and the finished products, but the overall objective and theme are the same. The information given to the children about abuses of children’s rights is very vague to avoid scaring them. With older children, the story of Iqbal Masih is very effective. Iqbal was the 12-year-old boy from Pakistan who was a child laborer and killed for speaking out against the practice. His goal was to free the child laborers and to have a school for the children in his community. With younger children (4-5 years old), one approach is to talk about how the president’s job in any country is to make sure all the kids have time to play and go to school. Bride often compares appealing to governments to stop human rights violations to a little girl in a class who keeps cheating on her spelling tests. Bride explains that if everyone tells the girl her cheating isn’t fair, maybe she would realize that, even though her teacher doesn’t catch her, she is really not getting away with it, because everyone else knows she is cheating. And, if nobody tells her that they think cheating is wrong, she will probably never change. This helps elementary school students associate the distant concept of appealing to government officials, an issue they may never experience directly, to a tangible idea.

Art projects include making a banner or a postcard, using a roll of receipt ribbon to write “the longest letter ever written” to a president, and creating papier-mâché. The students are instructed to make a project which visualizes how a child should be able to live and play. The completed art projects should be displayed to educate a larger community about what the students have learned.

Illustrate a Poem

Description: Select an age-appropriate poem relevant to a particular human rights concept or current campaign. Divide participants into groups of four. Divide the poem into as many parts as there are groups, so that each group is working with one part of the poem. The section can be a line, a verse, or half the poem. In a selected art medium, ask each group to interpret and represent their part of the poem. At this point, they should not know what the entire poem is about. When all groups have completed their creations, display them in order of the poem sequence, with or without the poem written underneath the pieces. Discuss the major themes of the concept or campaign and relate them to the art pieces. The completed works and poem can be displayed for the school and/or community to educate them about the campaign or concept.

Hellfire — Two Artists’ Journey

Angie Hougas, coordinator of Amnesty Group 139 in Madison, Wisconsin, received a scholarship to attend an Ethics and International Relations conference this past summer. The attendees discussed and debated the dilemmas of war and peace plus the dynamics of controversy and both peaceful and non-peaceful conflict resolution. It was at this conference that she viewed a video called “Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima.”

World War II brought extreme atrocities and human rights abuses, the most outrageous being the dropping of the atomic bombs. How do people overcome their individual emotions of anger, fear, and hatred to heal? How does a country heal? How does the world heal? Do artists and art play a part in the more abstract issues of social responsibility in this healing process? Should they?

Iri and Toshi Maruki, two Japanese painters, share their personal journey through this process in the 60-minute video “Hellfire A Journey from Hiroshima.” They were resisters to the 1931 Japanese Imperial Army occupation of Manchuria, the 1937 Japanese aggression in China (The Rape of Nanking), and the Pacific War. They witnessed the devastation and human torment of Hiroshima 50 years ago. Their journeys entail the awakening, awareness, and understanding on a higher, universal level; that of responsibility and the unprecedented scope of human violence characterized in the 20th century.

For the three years following the bombings, Iri tried returning to painting landscapes and Toshi to portraits. However, they were unable to forget the images and scenes they witnessed.


Due to US occupation forces, Japanese media censored all reports of the bomb to help prevent anti-American feelings among the Japanese. The Marukis became convinced that the reality of the bomb should not be forgotten. It was their sense of responsibility as artists to ensure what happened to Hiroshima would not be forgotten. In 1948 they started on the first Hiroshima Murals.

The contradictions portrayed by the murals are endless; the creativity and affirmation of life enhances one’s awareness to the horrors depicted. Water, a symbol of life, becomes a source of death, as corpses float peacefully in pools. People were painted rather than scenes. However, the people of the first mural are ghost-like. The Marukis’ paintings are beautiful, grotesque, realistic, sentimental, and compelling all at the same time. “It is a dreadful, cruel scene, but I wanted to paint it with kindness,” stated Toshi Maruki. Is this possible? Is art capable of expressing an experience better than any other medium? Does art have the capacity to capture the unconscious mind, which leads to the healing process?

Should national leaders be responsible for the wars their countries wage? As the Marukis say, “If people don’t drop the bomb, it will not fall.” Thus, what is the individual’s role in preventing human rights abuses? Does art influence one’s perspective of these abuses?

Their personal journey of healing took the Marukis not only back through Hiroshima but forward to paint Nagasaki. They opened their own peace gallery in 1967. After touring the US in 1970 with their murals, they painted “The Death of the American Prisoners of War.” Next, as Japanese citizens they became aware of their own responsibility for Japanese aggression and confronted this in their painting, “The Rape of Nanking.” They followed this with “Auschwitz” and “The Battle of Okinawa.”

Not only did painting enable the Marukis to heal emotionally, it helped them to understand collaboration — the kind that helps resolve conflicts. Iri and Toshi had different styles and approaches to their art. There were many conflicts between them in the early stages of working together. They had to learn to trust each other and become as confident in their joint creations as they were in their own individual art expressions. They had a common experience and a shared vision. They needed to work through diversity of style and conflict to become equal partners and reach consensus.

Their desire not to let the world forget, and their desire for peace and peace education has been translated into a lasting, visual memory. Art is a lasting impression that teaches the following generations of past atrocities.

For more information on obtaining the video and discussion paper, contact Angie Hougas by phone (608-838-6708) or by email .

To Speak for Peace

To Speak for Peace is a demonstration of public art, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations and honoring all people who speak for peace and who understand human rights and needs. Sculptors Jill Waterhouse, Denny Sponsler, and Sara Peterson, United Nations Association of Minnesota (UNA-MN) Curriculum Teacher Mary Eileen Sorenson, and twenty-five students in Grades 6-12 from Ramsey Fine Arts International School and South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota created an outdoor sculpture for the Lehmann Center, a multi-use facility of the Minneapolis Public Schools. The sculpture is made up of four three-and-one-half foot heads of stoneware clay with shoulders and interlocking arms.

Denny Sponsler and Mary Eileen Sorenson developed a two-week curriculum based on a variety of resources. A thread carried through the two-week workshop was a collection of images, songs, poems, and words of people throughout history, from all parts of the world, who have struggled for peace and human rights. Over 70 quotes from individuals, as well as U.N. human rights documents, images, symbols, icons, and banners of war and peace decorated the walls of the classroom as participants explored the history of friendship and sacrifice that are the cause of joy and hope in a troubled world. Classroom lessons, adapted from UNA-MN modules on human rights, centered on personal, global, and ethnic struggles of war/violence and peace.

Due to the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and the beginning of the U.N., visitors from UNA-MN and other peace organizations came to the class and helped the participants focus on the relationship between the obligation to respect human rights and to speak for peace.

Participants learned about German artist Kaethe Kollwitz, who after losing a son in World War I and a grandson in World War II, pleaded through her art, “No more war.” Lessons on the global struggle of World War II centered on drawings, paintings, and poetry of the victim-survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Slides of the art of refugee children from Bosnia and Croatia spoke of today’s tribal/ethnic struggle. These young people spoke through their stories, poetry, diaries, and artwork. Participants related to the importance of human rights and to the challenges of making and sustaining peace both personally and universally.

The process began as the students reflected on their experience in the workshop and wrote in their journals. Each day participants shared insights, poetry, and favorite readings on respect, tolerance, and peace. As the young artists applied underglaze to the sculpted heads, recognizable images of peace and words of respect, tolerance, responsibility, and universal human rights appeared. Again and again, pleas for peace were evident. As with Kaethe Kollwitz, the atomic bomb victims, and the children of former Yugoslavia, the workshop participants did not blame through their art and words. They simply and powerfully state, “No more war.”

The sculpted forms were then fired, set in concrete, and installed in the earth along the stepped terracing at the Lehmann Center. August 24, 1995 was the dedication and installation day for the project. Community members, area merchants, families, artists, and UNA members gathered to commemorate the past, celebrate the present, and renew hope for the future. At the center of the sculpted heads is a seven-foot frame that holds a bronze peace bell, cast by sculptor Bill Ploetz and dedicated in a sunrise ceremony on October 24, 1995. It is hoped that when the bell is rung, the sound will remind all who hear it that peace is possible. The community also hopes that the sculpture will become the center of a public gathering place to become peaceful and renewed.

The artist team is currently seeking funds to create a training model and workshop for teachers on cross-discipline projects on human rights and peace building. These opportunities would involve art teachers, community-based artists, and teachers from social studies, humanities, and a variety of other disciplines. Community-based programs and neighborhood youth organizations are especially encouraged to participate. Information is available through UNA-MN Education Programs, c/o Mary Eileen Sorenson, 1377 Sumner Street, St. Paul, MN 55116, 612-698-7157. A state division of the national non-profit organization (UNA-USA), UNA-MN is dedicated to building support for a more effective United Nations and to educating individuals of all ages about the need for active participation in a world of global change and challenge.

Resources: Drawing, Painting and Other Visual Arts

Bloom, Dwila. Multicultural Art Activities Kit. Denver: Center for Teaching International Relations (CTIR), 1994. Order from CTIR, University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies, Ben Cherrington Hall, 2201 S. Gaylord, Room 208, Denver, CO 80208, tel. 800-967-2847, fax 303-871-2906, $59.95. Grades 4-12.

Fry-Miller, Kathleen, & Myers-Walls, Judith. Young Peacemakers Project Book. Elgin, IL: Brethen Press, 1988. Order from Brethren Press, 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, IL 60120, ISBN #0-87178-976-0, $14.95. Early elementary.

I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1994, ISBN #0-06-251128-9, $12.95. All ages.

Ryder, Willet. Celebrating Diversity with Art: Thematic Projects for Every Month of the Year. Glenview, IL: GoodYearBooks, Scott Foresman, 1995. Order from GoodYearBooks, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, IL 60025. Grades 3-6.

Terzian, Alexandra M. The Kids’ Multicultural Art Book: Art and Craft Experiences from Around the World. Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing, 1993. Order from Williamson Publishing, P.O. Box 185, Charlotte, VT 05445 , 800-234-8791, $12.95 (plus shipping).