Exhibition Salty Childhood

Exhibition SALTY CHILDHOOD took place in April 11-15 of 2007 in the cinema "Pobeda" in Minsk. The aim of the exhibition was to raise public awareness to problems and feelings of abused children. The exhibition was carried out in the framework of the Universal April Week under Blue Ribbon - a week of protest actions against child abuse and neglect. Initiator and organizer of the exhibition is INGO "Ponimanie"/"Understanding" with assistance from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and "Pobeda" cinema. Main media sponsors are «Arguments and Facts in Belarus» and «Alpha-radio». Opening of the exhibition was supported by the company «Master's Kitchen». «Terre des Hommes» Gallery couldn't but join such a humane and modern project as far as the people who head this project are committed to their job and to the children.

 

Here you can read the press release on this event:

Abuse... Child abuse. A complicated notion. An unpleasant and dreadful topic which is so often held back. We prefer not to talk about it. It exists somewhere, but not around us, it just cannot be around us. We identify our society as a society of children and for children. However, there are so many things aimed against them-small fragile people who try to adjust themselves to our adult world, full of discomforts which this adult world adds to their children's "Me". Bulky furniture, which child's mind paints as some monster; costly things -"don't' touch, don't sit on it, you'll stain it"; an on-off switch - inaccessible - at the level of an adult hand; a peephole - out-of-reach - at the level of an adult eye. Our indifference towards children sometimes verges to abuse, but they are not guilty of being yet so small.

What is easier to say to the child : "I love you!" or "What's wrong now?" What does a child comprehend when we, adults, say: "I see, you'll never make a man"?

Each house contains some very convenient for adults "nooks" where the child becomes quiet and obedient. For some-it's a corner with a leather belt or a skipping rope, for others-it's a wardrobe which can be used to teach the child a lesson, the lesson which the child will never forget. The child is vulnerable, we - are not!

There are people, who do care about that. People, who are involved in that through their jobs, but mostly through the will of their responsive souls, people who can't leave that unnoticed, people who want to yell about it everywhere and to everyone. This yell is the yell of heart and soul. Thus, having a calling to guard the interests of the children, who suffered abuse and neglect from adults, working for orphaned children and other children at risk, INGO "Ponimanie"/"Understanding", based in Belarus, decided to organize an exhibition under the clear name of "Salty Childhood". The exhibits do not claim to be called pieces of art. There will be pictures made specially for the exhibition by the volunteers of the organization. According to Mrs. Natalia Ivaniuk, the supervisor and project director of INGO "Understanding", the main objective of the exhibition is "to give every adult an opportunity to feel what a child feels when he or she undergoes abuse through every object, every picture. "We want to immerse every visitor in the atmosphere of adult world by bringing them back into childhood. Here one can feel a child again, can stay "within mother's tummy", climb over huge furniture, stand in the corner, wrap oneself up in big real adult clothes and find answers to some non-childish questions", - says Mrs. Natalia Ivaniuk, the director of the program.