By: Steven Heller | June 17, 2009
In 2007, researcher Anna Schmitt of the human rights organization Waging Peace conducted a three-week mission in Eastern Chad to assess the humanitarian, human rights and security situation in the region and to collect testimonies from Darfuri refugees and displaced Chadians.
Anna learned how Darfuri children had witnessed horrendous events when their villages were beingattacked. As a result, she gave the children aged 6 to 18 paper and pencils and asked them to depict their dreams for the future and their strongest memories. The details of the the attacks on their village by Sudanese government forces and their allied Janjaweed militia filled their pages.
The 500 drawings collected by Waging Peace amount to a form of criminal evidence from silent witnesses. Today these images go on view at the AIGA National Headquarters in New York at 164 Fifth Avenue (between 21st and 22nd Streets); Monday through Thursday: 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m., Friday: 11:00 a.m–5:00 p.m. Thanks to Victoria Pringle for bringing this moving exhibition to the AIGA’s attention.