Artists see role in fostering culture of humanity at Peace Fest in Mel Lastman Square

“In our hearts we all seek peace,” she said, noting her country of origin’s subjugation under Japan in the first half of the 20th century.

Kim, one of many artists, storytellers and playwrights that descended on Mel Lastman Square for Friday’s Peace Fest, seeks to share stories of the traumatic past to enlighten the present and preserve the future.

That’s also the larger mission of History + Art = Peace, a weeklong call for amity and social justice filled with commemorative events — including Peace Fest — that launched last Saturday on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War.

Kim’s Peace Mask project, which uses plaster moulds and layers of handmade, mulberry-fibre-derived washi paper to create facial impressions of individuals from across East Asia, is an expression of reconciliation, she said.

“The faces symbolize the diversity and similarity of humanity . . . how different we are and yet how we’re the same.”

“It’s a 3D petition for peace,” said Kim’s daughter Kya, a peace and conflict studies lecturer who herself is a product of cross-cultural bonding — her father is an American professor of intercultural communications who lives with Kim in Japan.

The “3D petition,” which involved 2,000 people aged 1 to 85 across East Asia, is one of several projects tied to the seven days of events organized by the non-profit Alpha Education. The suffering and atrocities of millions during the war in Asia between 1937 and 1945 remain largely forgotten in the West, she pointed out, making renewed examination of the period all the more urgent.

Rubena Sinha, a 70-year-old Indo-Canadian dancer-turned-storyteller, is part of Peace Fest. She recalled to the Star how her uncle was affected by the postwar partition of India, which sparked massacres and one of the largest mass migrations in history.

“That riot was so vicious and so horrible that even today Indian soil cries for that with blood,” she said.

In 1947, a Muslim boy who worked as a servant on her uncle’s estate helped alert the military to a threat to her Hindu family’s safety, allowing them to escape in the middle of the night. The boy was later killed by fellow Muslims for assisting in their flight, she believes.

“Muslim or Hindu, they were our neighbours. But at that time nobody saw that, they just killed,” Sinha said. “That’s what happens in war. You can’t see another person.

“History teaches us a lot of things. If we don’t remember, then we’ll do wrong things over and over,” she added.

Flora Chong, executive director of Alpha Education, stressed remembrance — applied in the here and now.

“Instead of just looking into history, we hope that this history can be transformed into a force for pursuing peace,” she said.

“We see that the tension in East Asia and even the world is very intense. We hope that using art as a platform — because art is beyond ethnicity, beyond language — can bring people together in a creative, empathetic way.”

Playwright Diana Tso, who will tell stories alongside Sinha on Friday afternoon, draws on her mother’s memories of childhood in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong to spin out themes of common humanity in her plays.

After seeing her production Red Snow, her father shed his reluctance to speak of his traumatic past in Shanghai, she said. “How can you be silent? Then our stories are going to be buried.”

Peace Fest runs at Mel Lastman Square from noon to 9 p.m. Family-friendly activities include “ping-pong diplomacy,” storytelling and art installations, with food vendors and an evening concert.