At the World Children’s Festival on the National Mall in Washington,
DC on June 23-25, 2007, the world’s best child artists collaboratively
created spectacular murals to honor their global leaders. The beauty
and thoughtfulness of these works offers powerful evidence of the breadth
and depth of the global conversation that is cultivated and perpetuated
through children’s art
Members of the ICAF Youth Board (ages 15 to 18) guided the child artists
(ages 5 to 13), mostly winners of the Third Arts Olympiad in which nearly
3 million children worldwide participated to win the opportunity to represent
their home state or country at the World Festival. They consulted with
each other and the ICAF Board of Directors to select their global leaders.
First were leaders of global corporations that supported the Festival:
Adidas (Herbert Hainer), Disney (Robert Iger) and LEGO (Thomas Kirk Kristiansen).
Second were companies that foster children’s creativity and imagination:
Apple (Steve Jobs), eBay (Pierre Omidyar), GE (Jeff Immelt), Google (Larry
Page), Microsoft (Bill Gates) and Yahoo! (Jerry Yang). Next were individuals
who inspired the children: David Beckam for international sports; Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal of Kingdom Holding for entrepreneurship in emerging
economies; Nelson Mandela for world peace; and Sheikha Mozah, chairwoman
of the Qatar Foundation, for innovation in girls’ education. Lastly,
the children wanted to honor two U.S. presidents and first ladies – President
and Mrs. Bush and President and Mrs. Clinton.
The children had to develop their own concepts for the
murals and discuss ideas with each other. Since 52 countries were represented
at the Festival, a majority of the children did not speak English. But
art, the native language of children, proved to be the universal language.
Through their art the children communicated and fused their imaginations
to create these masterpieces of living art.
Typically, a Youth Board Member worked with three child artists, each
painting one side of the 3x4-foot mural. But there were exceptions: two
young artists produced one mural while ten artists painted another. There
was no adult supervision, except for the very first mural (in honor of
President and Mrs. Bush) in which a professional muralist from Chicago
guided the children. National teams from Mexico and Turkey produced their
murals as national tributes to their chosen leaders – Jeff Immelt
of GE and President and Mrs. Clinton, respectively.
These murals also symbolize cooperation across the national, cultural
and religious divides that afflict our world. American children were
delighted to learn about and from their international peers. Boys and
girls worked in harmony, and so did so-called “enemies” – artists
from Armenia and Turkey or the Israeli and Arab children. A salient objective
of the Festival was to reduce the inter-generational transmission of
trauma and hatred, so children can determine their own attitudes and
perspectives.
The powers of cooperation and collective creativity they experienced
will help shape the future.
