Déflagrations / Dessins d'enfants et violences de masse

Description

Wounded, mutilated, tortured, raped, killed, forced to flee, subjected to deprivation, witnesses to the violence suffered by their loved ones or to the death of their loved ones, forcibly conscripted or condemned to live in a warlike society, children have a total experience of mass violence, a memory and a voice in their own right.
Far from the "live" images on our screens, the picture is frozen. Time is suspended. The hypermnesia of the trauma will sometimes freeze the moment of the attack in an image with almost photographic details. The trajectories of the bullets and bombs tell us the precise target in the attack scenes. The instant of the kill is everywhere represented, as are the weapons that inflict it - machetes, planes, helicopters, bombs, explosive barrels, armoured vehicles, assault rifles... Bodies are omnipresent. Bodies in flight, in fear, that beyond fear. Damaged bodies. Dead bodies.
These drawings show, just as they help us to make the unbearable imaginable. For if these damaged bodies had been photographed, our eyes would have fled the image. In drawn figuration, we can look at them. It is our relationship to violence and its representation that is questioned. If drawing can create a distancing, the graphic and narrative power of children has the power to affect us deeply. In this way, it contributes to the plural memories of societies, to the documentation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and to our challenges of international justice.