Project Kids’ Guernica
June 2003

 Our class 2b (11-12 years old) from Bregenz town secondary school was invited to work on the project "Kids Guernica" - kids drawing for peace, organized by "Welt der Kinder" and our city goverment.

We were working together with the artist Rafet Jonuzi and our Art teachers Gudrun Jonuzi and Annemarie Lasser. 

We are in the creative department of our school which means that we have additional art classes. In these lessons we first of all analyzed Picasso’s painting GUERNICA. We learned about its historical background and were discussing about the figures in this painting, about what they could symbolize and how they made us feel.
GUERNICA is a call for peace. Luckily, we live in a more or less peaceful environment. When we started our works, we could hear and see a lot about war on TV which made us even more aware about what peace really means. We were talking about what peace means to us and what we need to live together peacefully. The most important things for us were our families, friends and nature. 

We live at the Lake of Constance and most of us love the water and all the things you can do with and in the lake, so we chose it as a motive for our painting. We did a lot of sketching. Together with the artist we made a collage with these sketches.  Most of us had dealt with the world under water, so that’s what became the main topic for our work. 

Then we worked on fish, and each of us designed at least one. For us these animals symbolize peace, quietness and freedom. Most of us made very colourful fish, but some created dangerous predatory fish to show that danger can be found everywhere, even among these peaceful and free-living creatures. We also chose one of the figures of Picasso’s GUERNICA - the woman holding a torch in her hand, bringing light into the darkness. 

During our project week (June 2nd - 6th) we were able to work in a big hall of the BENGER factory which was ideal to translate all our ideas into action. The artist helped us a lot with this and we learned much about sketching, colours, working with light and shadows to make our fish look real and creating a piece of art together. 

It was great working on such a big canvas (3,5 x 7,8 m) which made it possible to really work together. But, working together so closely often results in quarrels and fights, so we often came to sit together, discussing these problems, trying to find a way to work together peacefully. Altogether it was a great experience for us to work on this project. 

Participating 28 children:

Markus Buchele, Daniel Fels, Paul Kopf, Johannes Kuhmayer, Michael Kunchs, Johann Rogg, Daniel Schantl, Alessandro Spanring, David Zamut, Zehra Avcil, Fabienne Beran, Kathrin Brandle, Ivonne Bucher, Melanie Duringer, Santina Garcia, Lisa-Marie Gratzer, Kerstin Grunwald, Verena Haller, Cathrin                     Hertnagel, Fabienne Jochum, Nadine Leskovsek, Tamara Lick,   Vanessa Lick, Sylvia Oberhuber, Ramona Pratzer, Sonja Prettner,   Katharina Radler, Marina Sigg 

Artistic director:        Rafet Jonuzi 

Art teachers:             Gudrun Jonuzi  
                　　　　　      Annemarie Lasser