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This Sculpture titled 'All For Peace' is created out of 365 multiple coloured and sized, used and discarded shotgun shells. The artwork features a Dove carrying an olive branch being shot at by a Shotgun.
This piece has many symbolic references; including the Dove as the image of Peace, the gun symbolising what we have created to kill, the cost of all of the shells representing the cost for peace, the different coloured and sized shotgun shells as people and the number of shells used to represent the number of days that war and fighting occurs throughout the globe in a year. I created this sculpture with the sole purpose to make people question what we do to enable peace and stop suffering, and this fits perfectly with the highly relevant topic of fighting that is occurring around the world today. For there has been the Arab Spring and the last embers of this war torn period continue to burn, whilst more countries are gripped by civil wars and even the brewing of cross border fighting and so called "peace missions" come under threat from green on blue killings.
I used two quotes in my Dove sculpture. I chose to use quotes so that the viewer begins to understand the message that I am trying to create through the mix of powerful imagery and language; that we are currently destroying any possible future of peace. Not only are the quotes thought provoking but they are also from the likes of people who were faced by war and other injustices. Therefore they could truly understand the power that confronted them and the cruelty that came through prejudice and misguided beliefs of "it was the right thing".
The quote inside the dove reads; 'We have become death, the destroyer of worlds.' This adapted quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, was said after witnessing the power that he and fellow scientist had created through the 'Trinity' project. The joint work of scientists at Los Alamos, an atomic bomb research development programme set up shortly before the United States entered World War II, approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The quote below the dove and to the right of the gun reads; 'We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means, to do otherwise will just tear us apart. For there is no way to peace, peace is the way.' This is a compilation of quotes by Martin. Luther. King. Jr. and A. J. Muste. Both quotes clearly state that peace is the only option, and that we, as the most powerful creatures on this planet, should not be preventing war but promoting peace. Martin. Luther. King. Jr. and A. J. Muste. were both pacifists and political activist, they both faced persecution but continued to believe in Peace.
The sculpture does not only question the viewer but also more importantly makes us question mankind on whether we will ever achieve peace, or if it is just a future dream?
As one great visionary once said 'An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.' |
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| Author |
| Freddie Luff , 16 yrs |
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| School |
| St. Olave's Grammar School |
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