Celebrating the human spirit: artists against landmines.

A decade ago, a small group of medical staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) changed the way the world viewed landmines. Overwhelmed by the ever-increasing number of civilian mine victims they had to treat, the group declared the global anti-personnel mine problem an "epidemic". Subsequent advocacy campaigns, led by the ICRC and the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, culminated in the adoption of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Convention, which was ratified by no less than 143 Governments. Since this international treaty was adopted, the use of landmines has dropped dramatically and the number of victims has decreased markedly.

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A group of artists in Nairobi, Kenya are changing the way the world views landmine victims. At the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-free World, held in November 2004 at the United Nations headquarters in the capital city, delegates were welcomed by a huge pile of orphaned shoes--one of each pair--symbolizing the dismembered limbs of landmine victims. In the green patch outside the lobby, Kenyan artist Kioko's one-legged metal sculptures stood defiantly, one with an imitation bomb strapped to its chest (see photo above), and inside Gakunju Kaigwa's stunningly beautiful resin, fibreglass and steel sculpture of a cripple on crutches, entitled "Shattered but Not Broken", welcomed all delegates (see photo on page 57). "Balancing precariously on his crutches, the young man moves forward with dignity, determination and sheer will to survive", says Kaigwa. "The sculpture shows that the human spirit is a resilient and powerful thing to behold, even when encased in a fragile, disabled form made of flesh and blood."

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The idea for the Artist Against Landmines exhibition was conceived in October 2004, barely a month before the Nairobi Summit, when Handicap International (co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) facilitated a project aimed at raising awareness among Nairobi-based artists to sensitize the Kenyan public on the issue of landmines. Coordinated by resident Belgian artist Xavier Verhoest, the project brought together a group of 16 visual artists who were invited to create paintings and sculptures "portraying the problem of landmines" in a personal and original way.

After a one-day workshop, the artists were given three weeks to create two pieces of art. Verhoest says many of the artists were inspired by real-life victims, whose photos were shown to them when they first met as a group. Beatrice Wanjiku's "Still Standing" (see photo above), for instance, was inspired by a picture of a one-legged girl getting ready to jump into a swimming pool in Kosovo. Photographer Claudine Doury later commented: "I noticed happiness in her eyes the day when she saw the swimming pool.... She ran, threw her prosthesis, jumped into the water and for a few moments, I think, she really forgot everything."

Much of the work at the exhibition reflects the resilience of the human spirit. "In my work, the angle I have decided to show is what they cannot kill or destroy", says artist Wainaina Kimani. Nairobi-based Swiss artist Laurent Meierhans says his art is about the present, where violence, chaos, wars, pollution and selfishness have harmed the most vulnerable. "There is an emergence to understand that we cannot base our societies only on wild capitalism, performance and individualism. We are all part of a fragile world and all depend on each other."

Despite this and other efforts, however, a lot still remains to be done in the area of mine clearance. According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2004, 83 countries around the world are mine-affected, including 52 States parties to the Convention. There is also the question of stopping the production of landmines altogether; countries such as China, the Russian Federation, India, Pakistan and the United States are not yet party to the treaty and continue to produce and supply landmines to other countries.

Rasna Warah is on the editorial team of the UN-HABITAT publication, State of the World's Cities Report 2006, to be launched at the third World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Canada, in June 2006. She is a Board member of the Society for International Development's Eastern Africa office.

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