Join One Million Bones project to recognize victims of genocide

February 16, 2012 | Events, UToday
By Feliza Casano



Members of the UT community are invited to join the Arts Living Learning Community as it makes clay bones for One Million Bones.

According to the website for the One Million Bones project, “One Million Bones is a collaborative art installation designed to recognize the millions of victims and survivors who have been killed or displaced by ongoing genocides and mass atrocities in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burma.”

Kate Abu-Absi, director of the UT Arts Living Learning Community, said the project was started by an artist named Naomi Natale after a visit to photograph orphans in Africa left her overwhelmed not only by the orphan crisis, but by the devastating effect of genocide on the populations of the continent.

“Her first project was the Cradle Project a few years ago, and she’s collaborated with others for the One Million Bones project,” Abu-Absi said. “Groups are creating bones from clay for the art installation, and each bone represents one person who was killed in a genocide.”

The Arts Living Learning Community extends an invitation to anyone on campus who might be interested in participating in the bone-making workshop at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, in the Ottawa East Multipurpose Room.

“The number of bones we make will depend on how many people show up,” she said. “We want to make at least 500, but my goal is 1,000 bones if we can do that.”

The bones created by the group will be part of an installation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in spring 2013. Abu-Absi encourages all students to attend the event regardless of artistic talent.

“They don’t have to be perfect or artistic. Each bone is a way to unearth a person, a way to make a tangible representation of someone silenced by genocide,” she said.

The bone-making event is sponsored by the Arts Living Learning Community and the College of Innovative Learning.

To learn more about the project, visit onemillionbones.org.

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