Kids' Guernica at Kitakawasoe Elementary School in Japan

May 28, 2018,   A wonderful Kids’ Guernica painting was created by the sixth grade pupils of  Kitakawasoe Elementary School in Saga-city, Japan last year. In the period of Integrated Study, the pupils learned about peace and thought what they could for peace. Their school excursion to Nagasaki gave an opportunity to study about the misery of war and the important value of peace. They thought that they should tell what they had learned to as many as possible and decided to make a Kids’ Guernica painting. The executive committee of Kids’ Guernica led the workshop. After adding all the 94 pupils’ handprints, this peace painting was completed. They wish to express their thoughts to as many as possible.

A Kids' Guernica Exhibition in Paris from June 19

April 18,  2018
A grand Kids’ Guernica Exhibition is planned in Paris from June 19. Now six schools in Paris started making their own Kids’ Guernica peace paintings. Finally, thirteen peace paintings will be created by different schools in Paris for this wonderful exhibition.

 Kids Guernica Paris, Ecole maternelle Schwartzenberg

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Kids Guernica rue Madame 6e global
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The 2nd Kids' Guernica at Manila Japanese School in Philippine

April, 2018  

The second Kids' Guernica peace painting was created at Manila Japanese School attached to the Embassy of Japan in Philippine. The sixth grade students visited Baguio City in the northern Luzon island. Many Japanese people were living in this city before World War II. During the war time, some of them had to live very hard hiding they were Japanese. Many of those descendants are still living in this city. The students had an exchange program with those people in Abong and performed their original drama based on Sister Kaino's story. Through this excursion, they learned that they should not repeat the tragedy of war. They thought what they could do for peace and decided to create a Kids' Guernica peace paiting like last year. Each of the sixth grade students made his/her own peace painting and they discussed the suitable painting for a big canvas. After voting, Koharu Tanaka's "Friends Forever" and Miyu Kodama's "Love and Peace" were selected as a main design of the big canvas. Finally, the painting filled with all the sixth grade students' wishes for peace was displayed at the entrance of their school. It conveyed their message of peace to visiting children and parents.

Kids' Guernica and Third Paradise in Fukushima, JAPAN

March 27-30   A collaborative art workshop of Kids' Guernica and Third Paradise was held in Kawauchi Village, Fukushima, Japan.

Kids' Guernica and Third Paradise in Nikko, JAPAN

March 24, 2018   A collaborative art workshop of Kids' Guernica and Third Paradise was successfully held in Nikko, Japan.

Kids' Guernica at Nakateshima Elementary School, JAPAN

November, 2017  A Kids' Guernica peace painting was completed at nakateshima Elementary School, Osaka in Japan.

Kids’ Guernica at Bedales Prep School in UK

Performance Video

10 minute version

March 18, 2018
At the beginning of February, 2018, Bedales Prep School, Dunhurst, a small independent Prep school in the South East of England, enjoyed a week of cross-curricular workshops in response to the ‘Kids’ Guernica’ project. We began with a whole school assembly dedicated to Picasso’s famous painting, ‘Guernica’, 1937, and showed our pupils the Kids’ Guernica project, the response of school children around the world. Across all subjects we discussed international peace and explored four main themes; Young and Old, Friendship, Love and Conflict. In Art and Design, pupils began to compose the mural. There are five main panels (left to right); Conflict, Young and Old, Friendship, Love and Peace Poetry. We used textile collage and stitch and were inspired by the work of contemporary British artist, Grayson Perry. All pupils in years 7 and 8 (ages 11-14) studied and were inspired to write poetry in English, they then added their words in stitch to the mural. In History, pupils learnt about the rise of Nazism in Germany in the inter-war period. In French, pupils read and illustrated the poetry of Paul Eluard, notably his poems Liberté and ‘La victoire de Guernica’. Finally over the course of two days pupils explored the four main themes again, in Dance, Drama and Music to create a performance that was played against the backdrop of our stitched mural.