children draw images of war, 2012 (ongoing)

How do media shape our understanding of the world? How much of our “experience” is in fact not based on our own lives, but rather known only through images and stories we have encountered? I would possibly argue, that media shapes us far more then we believe. How many of us in the West have actually seen someone being murdered or someone starving? How many of us have seen a lion on the hunt or gazed through a telescope at some distant star? The number of things we seem to know without ever encountering them is endless and I don't want to blame anyone or anything for this. It is just the way our world works. But I would like to address this issue through some of my works in the future.

For the beginning I did ask some children whether they could draw me some images that depict war. None of these children has ever encountered war – and so do most of their parents – and so does most of our society. Nevertheless, war seems to be an essential part of our understanding of history and nation building.

I did ask children, because I believe, that they might be more directly influenced by media and all of them lack something we might call background information.