Deryk Houston

Artist in Victoria, BC. Canada

The National Film Board of Canada: Featured Deryk Houston in the documentary, “From Baghdad to Peace Country”   http://www.nfb.ca/film/from_baghdad_to_peace_country/

His work is in the permanent collection of the Canadian war Museum in Ottawa. (On the recommendation of the National Gallery of Canada)

He represented the city of Vancouver, BC., in a solo exhibition of his work in the former Soviet Union.

 

Happening



Deryk at Ogden Point, Victoria, BC. (photo by Elizabeth)


WOODWYNN PEACE GARDEN
Woodwynn Peace Garden at Woodwynn Farms, a therapeutic community for the homeless. The Peace Garden includes a labyrinth with herbs, fruits and vegetables incorporated.



GALLERIES
I am currently featured at Art Works Gallery in Vancouver BC Canada.
And the Greater Victoria Art Gallery rental program.

Do you really feel comfortable in this type of world you are creating Mr.Obama?

I would love the chance to give advice to Obama:)
It’s not going to happen of course because I am only a simple artist. But ……. I do wish I could voice my concerns about the world I live in.
I have read mountains of information over the past fifteen years about world conflict.
The most important thing I have learned is that international law is the most important basis for what we might call “civilized societies”. Without it, we have chaos and anarchy and either one makes for a frightening world.
If we are not going to adhere to existing laws then there certainly is no point in creating new ones.
Supporting international laws in good faith should be the basis for everything.
You have to support these laws fully and not just say you believe in them with a “wink wink”.There should be no wiggle room.
For example: During the many years of sanctions on Iraq, I watched Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Mr. Lloyd Axworthy enforce sanctions that were causing the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands of children because of the way sanctions were crippling Iraq in every way possible. All the leaders knew that this was happening but chose to ignore the reports coming in from people on the ground such as UNICEF and the Red Cross Red Crescent societies among many others.
Those children had rights to basic things and the acts of our government leaders were denying them those rights. (According to a 2002 Unicef report, several hundred thousand people died as a direct result of those sanctions.)I was briefed on that report in Baghdad in 2002 and yet Mr. Axworthy’s office refused to meet with me to learn what I had learned. (At the same time, CISIS sent someone to my home to confront me and demanded to know why I had been in Iraq).
My point is that we shouldn’t ignore international law when it suits us. (By the way, the whole reason that the sanctions were placed on Iraq was because Iraq would not “prove” that it didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Funnily enough…. our governments never asked… how do you prove you don’t have something.)
And now we have the killing of Osama Bin Laden…. without a trial. The assassination and the decision to kill him by entering another countries sovereign space without permission. And all this carried out by one country, without a world court.
And we also have a similar case in Libya. A small handful of countries deciding that it is somehow lawful to assassinate the leader of a country where war has not been declared on the basis of a “wink wink” policy.
Is this international law?
Do you really feel comfortable in this type of world you are creating Mr.Obama?

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