Big Mural
Workshop in Tokushima, Japan
29 July - 30 July 1995
5 August - 6 August 1995
THE TOKUSHIMA MODERN ART MUSEUM
A workshop in Japan was held for four days on 29, 30 July and 5, 6 August in 1995 at The Tokushima Modern Art Museum. The museum invited seventy-five children from local elementary schools on the first day. Mr. Toshifumi Abe, Associate Professor, Osaka Women's Junior College, lead the workshop with the assistance of teachers from the Elementary School attached to Naruto University of Education, Donari-cho Elementary School and others. Postgraduate students of Osaka University of Education also joined to assist the painting of the murals.
At the workshop, harmony of the collective work and collaboration work was stressed. The importance lies in the balance between the collectivity where an individual painter's personality should be clearly seen and the collaboration where the common theme should be shared by each painter. Avoiding stressing a drawing technique, the workshop aimed to draw out the children's innocent impressions. This is in line with the current trend of art education in Japan.
With some information on the war from their parents teachers prepared drawings of peace from their images in advance. At the workshop, there were discussions based on their drawings and the participants developed their ideas and images of peace. The keywords they selected were 'a bridge of peace', 'a rainbow', 'children from the world hand in hand', 'the fiftieth year after the war'.
The earth was placed in the centre of the mural, 'the sun' on the left, 'a tree of peace' on the right, and 'a balloon' and 'a rainbow' above the centre. The children of four groups painted freely on the space around these images. Their motifs were 'fish', 'birds', 'animals', 'gardens', 'children from the world hand in hand', 'Awa Dance', 'dragons', 'big bridges' and so on. The completed work was full of variety of designs because it was painted by seventy-five children. It is interesting to find an influence from comics on the way of their drawings.
The finished work was shown at the exhibition starting on 29 August together with another piece which had been already completed in Florida. This exhibition that a local TV station and a newspaper featured through their media attracted a lot of visitors.

ORGANISER OF WORKSHOP
Shinichi Tomoi (THE TOKUSHIMA MODERN ART MUSEUM)
Toshifumi Abe (Associate Professor, Osaka Women's Junior College)

Children:
AKAEDA Shun, 9
ASAHI Yumiko, 11
IKAWA Chieko, 11
INOKUMA Yuko, 12
ITAKURA Takayuki, 10
ICHINOSE Hiroko, 11
INABA Takayoshi, 9
IWAYA Eri, 12
EMI Yukari, 8
ENDO Reina , 12
OKUSA Tomoyo, 10
OKUSA Yuki, 8
OGAWA Yuki, 10
HASHIGO Yuka, 9
KASAI Yoshie, 11
KAJIURA Shuko, 10
KAMATA Seiji, 11
KASHIWA Toki, 11
KONO Sori, 6
KAWAMURA Yukiko, 11
KAMIHARA Yumi, 8
GUN Akihiko, 10
GUN Emiko, 9
KOSUMI Keiko, 11
GOSHIMA Sanae
GOTODA Ayaka, 6
GOTODA Kazuki, 8