Art & Education
I was visiting Copenhagen a few weeks ago when I met another traveller, another tourist wandering around the city. After an interesting chat, we exchanged contact information and kept in touch. That series of events led me to receive a picture on Whatsapp from a photography exhibit somewhere in Italy a few days ago. It was a picture of Buddhist monks in Angkor Wat, a place in Cambodia I hope to visit someday. My heart skipped a beat as I marveled at how far and wide, and in what strange and cunning ways, art can travel. It knows no boundaries and no language… and that makes it a powerful, powerful tool.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but contrast that innocent cultural interaction with the intolerance and disrespect for one another that seems to be spreading worldwide. We hear it in the news almost on a daily basis even though it has been around for a much longer time. We dismiss, discriminate and point our fingers at the differences between ourselves, be it gender, race, or religion based. These differences are accentuated by our ignorance about each other, which in turn generates a lack of understanding and feeds several degrees of fear. And this fear, we have discovered, can too soon turn into dislike or even hatred.
As we struggle to demystify these differences, we need to use all tools available to us. If ignorance is key in this process, then education can be an important ally. Education not only provided in school but all around us, through different channels. As I said earlier, art knows no boundaries and no language and though we might choose to admire the beauty of reality and abstraction in a painting, photograph or poem, we might as well hear the message behind it and ponder on it.
Happy ponderings, everyone. I hope you enjoy this edition!
Stephanie Johnson Padilla
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Letter from the Assistant Editor
Cover foto: Grace Odicio
Foto on this page: Grace Odicio