Tree of Life

This sculpture was made by Kester, Hilario Nhatugueja, Fiel dos Santos and Adelino Serafim Mate Maputo, Mozambique 2004. It is a product of the Transforming Arms into Tools TAE project and is made from decommissioned weapons.

TAE was set up by Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane in 1995 and is supported by Christian Aid. During Mazambique's civil war which lasted from 1976 to 1992, millions of guns and other weapons poured into the country and most of them remain hidden or buried in the bush. The project is an attempt to eliminate the threat presented by the hidden weapons. Mozambicans are encouraged to hand them over in exchange for items like ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. In one case a village gave up its weapons in exchange for a tractor.

Once the weapons are decommissioned, they are cut up and turned into sculptures by the artists in Maputo. This process has produced the Tree of Life and the Throne of Weapons also created by Kester.

Now located in the British Museum. Well worth a visit and should you do, STOP and spend some time in reflection. Those weapons caused untold damage and the deaths of thousands of people. Isaiah spoke of a time when weapons would be turned into plough-shares. While that time is yet to be all of us must give ourselves to doing what we can in the situations where we find ourselves to demonstrate what this means and can mean for others.

Lovers

In May 2003 we visited the National Art Gallery in Canberra. The reason for the visit was an Exhibition of Work by Bonnard. A focus on the mundane. "Woman in Red Bathrobe" ... "Woman in Bathrobe" ... "Woman after bathing" As I said mundane. Then, delightful relief with the work of Sisley and Monet.

However the confronting moment came when there before me, side by side, was Ben Shahn's "This in Nazi Brutality" - Lidice 1942 AND Roger Magritte's "Lovers".

In both paintings there are two people each has their head covered.
One may understand the covered heads in the first although a little surprising given the way the Jews in Lidice were so openly killed. But, Lovers with heads covered!
Given the place, the role of face for all of us maybe Shahn gave his two a little protection from the atrocity of the occasion. With Magritte, Lovers! ? , even with the obvious delight lovers have for each other there remains so much unknown ... private ... kept from the other.
Lidice was a Czech mining village that was obliterated by the Nazis in retaliation for the 1942 shooting of a Nazi official. All the men of the village were killed and all the women and children were sent to concentration camps.  Shahn produced a poster for the US Office of War Information. This poster had one figure with bag over his head.  I will search for a copy of this painting I saw in Canberra.
Magritte painted this work in Normandy. He noted the spontaneous intimacy of this holiday snapshot becomes a spectre of alienation, suffocation, even death... It's chillingly real in the mind's eye.