Youth and War Art Project was launched in fall 2002 in partnership with Unity, a New York City alternative high school. Four ArtsBridge scholars, representing the Department of Drama, and the Departments of Dramatic Writing, Photography and Imaging, and Film and Television in the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television, together with Jan Cohen-Cruz, Associate Professor in the Department of Drama and a specialist in community arts, and Rosemary Quinn, director of the Experimental Theatre Wing, partnered with Unity students and teachers to explore global history from a joint personal and political perspective. Amma Ghartey-Tagoe, a recent Harvard graduate with a major in history, and a current graduate student in the Tisch School of the Arts' Department of Performance Studies, provides additional research assistance and mentoring to the ArtsBridge Scholars. The participants, using historical documents and the personal experiences collected through the Peace Playground Project (PPP), explored personal and political perspectives about war towards the creation of theatre, video and photography.
In Spring 2003, the Youth and War Project shifted to an afterschool program. The aftershool group includes students from Unity, several students that participated in the PPP, and several refugee and immigrant youth, experienced with war, invited by Annie Smith of the International Rescue Committee to participate. This group will also explore the intersection of historical documents and personal experience towards the creation of theatre, video and photography about war. The plan is to perform, screen and exhibit the creative work produced to other high school students as well as to engage them in interactive art exercises to explore their own thoughts and feelings about war. By the end of the semester, the afterschool workshop participants will, through their artistic pieces, reflect what they've learned about the former Yugoslavia and other war-torn global sites. The participants are especially keen to let their teen counterparts in Sarajevo know how their experiences have reached half way around the globe and inspired New York City youth to dig deeper into history to understand what the Bosnians have experienced as personal attestations to the affects of war. It is this joining of the personal and the political, lived experience and history, that is at the heart of this ArtsBridge project. The premise is that history comes alive when we feel its impact on the lives of real people. The personalizing influence of the Sarajevan transcripts, interviews with inspired New York City refugee youth, and the creative work produced, will bring the lived, emotional dimension of history to high school students both in the workshop and beyond.
