statement

‘Happy Art Home’ is a Peace Project that gathers children’s time, good will, energy and enjoyment while participating in workshops. It is part of a semi-nomadic and Utopian initiative that grows from last year’s project shown at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Japan.

‘Happy Art Home’ hopes to convey a message of inner and outer peace & harmony by sharing creative activities and outreaching communities of children from different socio-political backgrounds. The nomadic workshops invite the children from across continents to familiarize themselves with the concept of ‘connectingness.’

Based on a diverse range of activities done individually and collectively, my project aims to encourage children to cross the local boundaries of their everyday and discover other ‘foreign’ children’s worlds and realities.

The ‘Happy Art Room’, which has been exhibited in several countries (over 11 cities), is designed to be a comfortable place for children to attend workshops, share activities, enjoy themselves, play, relax and even rest!... The workshops’ activities are developed as a means of encouraging their curiosity about ‘other’ people, places and times.

This communication project is a Utopian bridge between the communities of children, regardless of the states of socio-economical disparities that divide nations. The artist becomes a mediator whose role is to facilitate mutual understanding and acceptance of one another.

“Peace is neither an original paradisical state nor a form of co-existence by mutual consent.  Peace is something we do not know; we can only sense it and search for it.  Peace is an ideal.  True Peace is more difficult and unusual than any other ethical or intellectual achievement.”

-- Hermann Hesse, If the War Goes On