by Andrew Malekoff
Powerful images that depict disturbing events in ways
that literature alone cannot can be illuminating and healing. Following are
three descriptions of different media that capture recent man-made disasters
still very close to the surface for many of us.
The first, Please
Stand By, is an example of cartoon art in the aftermath of 9/11. The
second, The Last Lockdown, is about a
sculpture created after the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Both
illustrate the fear-inducing paralysis of traumatic events. The last, Memorial Rock Garden, describes bereaved
children painting stones to memorialize their deceased dads.
Please Stand By
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001
terrorist attack on America, several artists joined together to produce a soft
cover book entitled 9/11: Artists Respond. It is a collection of art, sequenced to
showcase the artists’ response to the terror that befell the world.
One nine-frame piece entitled “Please Stand By…”, by
Jeph Loeb and J. Scott Campbell, features a girl of about eight years old
watching cartoons on television. By the third and fourth frames, the image on
the screen changes to a live feed of the Twin Towers ablaze.
As the little girl stands transfixed, stuffed animal
in hand and her face less than 12 inches from the screen, the commentator
announces, “We interrupt this program to take you live…”
The little girl turns away and cries out, “Mommy!”
The next three frames begin with her mother dropping a basket of laundry. Then,
with her face contorted in anguish, she embraces her daughter to shield her
from the unrelenting televised images.
The final frame is a close up of the little girl
asking, “Mommy, when are the cartoons gonna come back on?”
The Last Lockdown
The next image is a haunting statue, as described by
journalist Josh Hafner, of a “small girl cowering beneath an open school desk,
clutching a leg as she gazes into the distance with a look of fear in her
eyes.”
The sculpture was created by Manuel Oliver, an
artist who lost his 17-year-old son Joaquin in the Parkland, Florida, mass
shooting earlier this year. As Oliver said, “It’s too late for us to save
Joaquin from gun violence, but through art my family and I are making sure that
we protect the rest of the kids out there.”
“Talking about the
trauma is rarely if ever enough,” advises noted trauma expert Bessel van der
Kolk. He points to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and the Vietnam War
Memorial in Washington, D.C., “as good examples of symbols that enable survivors to mourn the dead and
establish the historical and cultural meaning of the traumatic events to remind
survivors of the ongoing potential for communality and sharing.”
Memorial Rock Garden
In 2002 at North Shore Child &
Family Guidance Center, a group of boys and girls who lost fathers in the
attack on the World Trade Center decorated stones to be placed in a memorial
rock garden.
The kids in the bereavement
group sat together around a table covered with newspaper. In front of each of
them was a large smooth oval-shaped stone. They decorated the stones with
unique designs of paint and glitter, each one a personal remembrance of their
fathers.
“Mine is painted
gold,” beamed Mack. “I painted it gold because my dad is like gold to me.” A
heart framed Jenny’s design, “because my dad will always be in my heart.” On
Seth’s stone were two intertwined hands, a small one and a larger one that
showed “me and my dad were best friends.” Victoria painted a fire hat and said,
“My dad is my hero.”
We might do well to
remember that when funding cuts threaten to
decimate arts programs in schools there is more at stake then we might imagine.
The impact of the arts is not measured by standardized tests and its value is
incalculable.
Bio: Andrew Malekoff is the
Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which
provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through
24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
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