A cooperative Arab-Jewish children's project led to the creation of this peace sculpture, now permanently installed in the Peace Garden at Seattle Center, in the shadow of the Space Needle.  Under the direction of project founder Amineh Ayyad, Palestinian-American, and local Iraqi Artist Sabah Al-Dhaher, Arab and Jewish children came together for many weeks to create this sculpture.  The project was sponsored by The Arab Center of Washington, The Middle East Peace Camp (an Arab & Jewish children's summer camp), Kadima (a progressive Jewish community), and the Iraqi Community Center.

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PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Middle East Peace Sculpture Project was initiated, designed and directed by Amineh Ayyad, Palestinian-American, to create a sculpture inspired by the art, poetry, and inter-group dialogue, and as a response to the escalating conflicts in the Middle East and the war against Iraq.  The children of the Arab Center of Washington, the Middle East Peace Camp, Kadima, and the Iraqi Community Center worked together to create this sculpture all Spring and Summer in 2003.  "Projects like these help broaden people's minds and perspectives, and work out their differences.  The adults' generation is not going to be the one that would change things, it is my generation.  So it is good to open people's minds when they are young and let them experience things before they get all those false images of the world through media, and just have a good time."    Eyas Rashid, Participant.  Amineh believes that the hope of the world resides in the pure hearts of children.  And as the beginning of a very long healing process, she hoped to build a small community of  Arab and Jewish children who would come together to make a sculpture that symbolize a yearning for peace and justice. This project and the resulting sculpture symbolizes these children's aspirations and ideas about world peace, harmony and friendship.  Sabah Al-Dhaher, Iraqi sculptor, was invited to serve as the sculpting instructor and master artist of this project.  Sabah is a talented artist with numerous years of experience in teaching stone carving at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle and  the annual International Stone Sculptor’s Symposium at Camp Brotherhood in Mt. Vernon, Washington. The white Italian marble Sabah offered his studio, talents and passion for several months to all participants.  Despite the news about the bombardment of his own hometown of Nassiryah in Iraq, his dedication and commitment did not flatter.  His kindness and the constant smile on his face throughout the project inspired everyone, but in particular, a young four year old to come up with her own understanding and definition of peace. It is Sabah, she decided.  After spending two years in a refugee camp in the desert of Saudi Arabia,  Sabah came to the United States as a political refugee in 1993.

Chiseling the top piece of the sculpture Along with the sculpting, many other creative peace-making sessions were designed, including poetry reading and writing, discussions guided by a compassionate listening instructor, sketching, making clay models, sculpting, and much more.  All sessions took place on Sunday afternoons at Sabah's studio in Seattle.  The children and parents discussed their thoughts about peace, harmony, and friendship.  Fern Feldman, Kadima's Rabbi, Christopher Bodenheimer Knaus, a volunteer poet, and Amineh helped motivate this process through Arabic, Hebrew, and English poetry and readings.    " For me, the most magnificent part of this project was seeing the children sculpt, using their hands, arms, fingers to chisel away as if peace might actually come through the smoothing out of the particular area of  marble they were responsible for."     Christopher Bodenheimer Knaus     The process inspired our poet, Dr. Knaus, to write Children's Peace Day, a poem, gifted to us on the day of the dedication. On that day, Maia Brown and Mona Attallah read the poem beautifully.  They read in unison: In a time such as this We have to be a thousand children Sending love A thousand children With enough warmth to heal us all A thousand children Telling our leaders        No More! There will be no more war,              Not while we are here              trying to live; In a time such as this No one can stand alone Nor stand by and watch Our lives drip drip dripping into the sea We say, with our words, our fingers, our hands, our love, We say No More...

Making clay models The participating families shared their intimate feelings about the conflict in the Middle East and their aspirations for peace under the guidance of a compassionate listening instructor, Andrea Cohen.   All these activities inspired the design of the sculpture.  At the same time, the children learned about the hands-on creative process through expressing their thoughts in clay and marble.  All the children had a hand in carving the white Italian marble.  Everyone learned about building community.    "I was deeply touched by experiencing the openness with which the children came together to create the sculpture - a beautiful symbol of hope for the future. They are truly our teachers."  Andrea Cohen, Compassionate Listening Instructor

The finished artwork is a graceful twist of Italian marble about 30 x 8 inches standing atop a natural column of black basalt, approximately 62 x 14 inches.  The twist depicts two identical rectangular leaves, very much alike, yet different in texture.  They are intertwining and reaching toward the sky--interdependent.  Peace is engraved in Arabic, English and Hebrew on the sides of the basalt column along with the names of Arabic and Jewish participating children.  The piece was installed onto a concrete slab within the Seattle Center Peace Garden in the shadow of the Space Needle, surrounded by flowers, herbs and other greenery.  A dedication ceremony took place on October 23rd, 2003 when Seattle City Council President, Peter Steinbrueck (on behalf of Mayor Gregory J. Nickels)  Children’s Peace Day in Seattle.  He encouraged all citizens to join our children in their inspirational efforts to promote peace and harmony in the world.

 

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Please email amineh@peacesculpture.org with questions or comments.
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Last modified: September 08, 2006