“Seeking Peace” (installation) Nanaimo Art Gallery January 13th 2012 – April 14th 2012
Much of my work over the past fifteen or so years has been in support of children’s rights and peace.
This installation is inspired by a life altering event, which helped me find a path towards working for peace.
It started with a journey to Iraq and a tour of the Ameriyha bomb shelter in Baghdad, where several hundred men, women and children died in a blinding flash of agony. The simple, concrete and reinforced steel box like building structure, with four foot thick walls and ceiling, was considered to be a safe place to find shelter from the constant air attacks during the first Gulf war.
As I walked quietly by candle light through the grim, dark interior, I must say that I never felt so close to evil as when I stood and studied the burnt remains and Xray images on the black stained walls and ceilings of that twisted space. It smelled of charcoal and pain.
I was accompanied by an elderly woman who had lost her entire family in the blast. Since her loss, she has spent her time taking people through the shelter, explaining how the two two massive, guided missiles burst through the roof and found her family inside. She had just left the shelter, thinking that everything was safe for a while between attacks to go back to her nearby home and hang up her laundry. (Life had to go on despite the daily bombing runs and so it was normal to come and go from the shelter.)
The first missile sliced a hole in the roof and exploded inside where her family and several hundred people huddled. A second missile entered the same hole in the roof and burst through the main floor to the next level below the first, where it exploded and created even more horrific carnage and incinerating heat.
Anyone who has entered through the large, five ton doors of that place and witnessed the remains inside, leaves in shock.
But what does one do about it? How does one find any hope?
I found it in the Iraqi people themselves. They demonstrated to me a deep eternal hope that always survives despite the darkness and it altered my ways of thinking in a profound manner over the years. It helped me retain my sanity when world events might test us to our limits. I also found hope from the love of my family.
In this installation I have decided not to recreate the grim physical tragedy of this event as I experienced it. I have chosen a different approach which focuses on life over the destruction of war because it is the only way forward.
When the woman who gave the tour of the shelter was asked how she felt about the pilot who had bombed her children and her neighbours, she showed no hate. She quietly said, “I feel sorry for the pilot who bombed my children”.
In this installation, I would like people to view the white sheets on the clothes lines and think about that woman. White sheets have a long history in many cultures that spark emotions and fresh ideas, including new beginnings, surrender, nationalism, as well as an international signal of peace to strangers entering foreign lands.
When I was in the bomb shelter I saw something completely unexpected. There was a shaft of the most beautiful, gentle light coming through the round hole in the ceiling where the missile had burst through. Inside that torn hole, mixed with the warm ray of sunlight, were several fragile, tiny birds, flying in and out of the light.
I hope that people will find in my art a feeling of being drawn towards the light.
Thank you
Deryk Houston
dhouston@coastnet.com
www.derykhouston.com
250 598 9908
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