Transcriber: Nicole Schmitt
Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
So I thought I'd give you a peak
into, really, an artist mid-project.
I'm working on something now
that's really changing my career,
changing my life.
And so I wanted to give you all
a peak at it mid-process.
So here we go.
[WAR-TOYS]
War-toys is a work-in-progress photo essay
and the title of my talk tonight.
It's taken me my entire career
as both an artist
and so-called toy photographer
to develop both the project
and methods behind it.
And it's likely going to take me
years to finish, if I ever do.
As I've learned very quickly,
it's the sort of project
that's really hard
to put down once you start.
The goal of the project is to articulate
children's accounts of war
using principles of play and art therapy.
In practice, children essentially
act as our directors,
showing me what they've experienced.
I use locally bought toys
to recreate as accurately as possible
what the children have told me
in the actual places that they happened.
My intention is to give context to their
accounts while sharing their perspectives,
which are often unseen,
and in many cases undervalued.
Despite having the cognitive ability
to understand
what's happening around them,
children often lack
the communication skills
to directly comment and tell you
what they've seen and what they've felt.
It's especially true
with children who've been traumatized.
Children who've been traumatized,
especially in extreme cases,
can lose the ability to speak altogether.
To them, they've almost reverted
to an infant-like state.
Play and art is how
you can unlock their experiences
and begin the process
of healing and understanding.
At its core,
it's the exact same for all of us.
When we all grew up,
we had these tools at our disposal.
For me, the backyard adventures
of Han Solo and GI Joe
were organic recreations
of my day-to-day life,
my daily hopes,
my daily fears, it all came out.
Problems in school, problems at home,
and a million questions
about what it meant to be human,
what it meant to live in the adult world
was all acted out organically.
We're all built with this.
Every human everywhere has this ability.
It's a tool that especially
with trained professionals,
can be very, very useful
for unlocking and helping these children.
For the record, I'm no expert.
I know just enough
about art therapy and play therapy
to understand the dangers involved.
It's why I've felt I've had
to find a group of professionals
to help guide the project
and guide me along.
Chief among them
is the wonderful Dr. Judith Rubin.
Judy, as she's better known,
is an accomplished author.
She's written books like
The Art of Art Therapy, Child Art Therapy.
She's also a professor
at the University of Pittsburgh.
And, most importantly, she was an original
cast member of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
(Laughter)
The rest of the team
that's assembled around Judy is amazing,
but I really want her to adopt me.
I'm going to keep trying on that.
So to further ensure
the health and safety of the children,
I've also insisted on working through
established humanitarian organizations.
I rely on local art therapists
and caregivers
to conduct art- and play-based
interviews on my behalf.
In the majority of cases,
I observe play sessions and art sessions
and then consult
with a therapist after the fact
to understand what I've seen.
It's not apparent.
Without having someone who's trained,
it's hard to know exactly what's going on.
The order in which things were drawn,
the order in which things were placed,
it all reveals volumes.
It's something that's hard to know.
Really, just watching the entire process
has been an incredible
learning experience for me.
But really, the same thing
can be said for the entire project.
The things I've seen have been
educational, to say the least.
I began production last year
with a trip to the West Bank
supported by Saint Lawrence University.
Within my first few days,
I got to observe
my first art therapy session
at the Spafford Children's Center
in East Jerusalem.
Children rushed to grab pastels
and pens and paper,
and gleefully carved out
spots on the floor to work.
My heart sank as I watched a little girl
quietly, intensely
coloring in pools of blood.
Violence was everywhere,
in each one of their drawings.
There were pictures of planes
and trains and boats
and everything you could think of
mixed in with missiles and mortars
and soldiers and the dead.
Despite all of this,
in most of the drawings,
there was at least one smiling child,
either observing events or being shot.
I can't think of a better example
of the power of art therapy.
At this age, the children were too young
to think about putting a frowny face
on their stick figures.
To them, it wasn't connected to emotion,
it's just how people looked.
Sorry, it's a little hard.
I roamed the crowded,
open-air markets of East Jerusalem
looking for toys for my shots.
As I picked up the various poly bags
and vehicles and everything around me,
I auditioned them all in my mind.
These toys will represent
the children's people,
the people they've lost,
the people they know,
the people in their drawings.
They had to be perfect.
I set up the toys along the barrier wall,
just past the Qalandia checkpoint
on the road to Ramallah.
With me was an unforgettable drawing
made by one of the little boys.
It showed a soldier guarding the wall
and a little boy shot in the head,
a pool of blood gathering beneath him.
As I started to lay out the shot
and put the boy in place,
I used a little plastic syringe
to spray out the pool of blood,
I thought I could hear
yelling in the distance.
By the time I started
to put the soldier in place,
a full-blown protest
was behind me at the checkpoint.
People were yelling
and screaming and chanting
and advancing on a line of IDF soldiers,
who appeared almost as soon as they did.
People in cars were honking furiously,
trying to get out of the checkpoint.
Over the loudspeakers,
they told the crowd to disperse,
first in Arabic, then in English.
I decided to stay focused on the photos
even before the stun grenades
and tear gas started to go off.
As people ran and screamed,
I decided to remain focused on the photo.
I looked down the viewfinder,
pushed the shutter button, and kept going.
On both sides of the border
were journalists to capture this moment,
but no one was there
to capture what I came to get:
a boy's perspective on war.
It seems mad that I didn't turn the camera
toward the people running away
with swollen faces and red eyes,
but I felt I made the right choice.
I came, and I got
a little boy's perspective.
(Video: Honking)
(Gun shot)
(Honking)
(Music)
(Spoken word to music)
Finally brethren after a while
The battle will be over
For that day when we shall
lay down our burdens
And study war... no more
Finally brethren after a while
The battle will be over
For that day when we shall
lay down our burdens
And study war... no more
Finally brethren after a while
The battle will be over
For that day when we shall
lay down our burdens
And study war... no more
Finally brethren after a while
The battle will be over
For that day when we shall
lay down our burdens
And study war... no more
Finally brethren after a while
The battle will be over
For that day when we shall
lay down our burdens
[WAR-TOYS]
And study war... no more
Brian McCarty: So despite
the work you've seen,
I feel like I'm scratching the surface.
There are children in southern Israel
who daily endure rocket
and mortar attacks.
Twenty miles away from them,
there are children in Gaza
caught in the crossfire
of retaliatory airstrikes
and targeted assassinations.
I'll be returning to the Middle East soon
to work with both.
Israeli or Palestinian,
it makes no difference to me,
it makes no difference to the project.
Then it's Columbia -
Bogota, Medellin,
and the small mining town of Segovia.
Then Uganda, South Sudan.
There's unfortunately
no shortage of war zones to choose from.
By the time this project is done,
I want to present
a global perspective on war
from the children living
in its day-to-day reality.
And really, as challenging
as it's going to be,
it's not going to be that hard.
Because play is just as universal as war.
Thank you.
(Applause)
