Death Without Weeping - VII
Each year throughout Brazil, thousands of mothers loose their children to armed violence, even in our own community they number hundreds.
The theatrical sketch, prepared by the mothers of children attended by the Hummingbird Project in connection with our Social Communication Programme, Urban Outcries, entails a descent into a Brazilian heart of darkness, and as it begins to touch on and to evoke some of our worst fears and unconscious dreads about “human nature”, and about mothers and infants in particular, one may experience righteous indignation. Why am I being served this?
Death is never an easy topic, not for science, not for art and
certainly not for any mother who is faced with the death of her own
child. It is not surprising that Edvard Munch’s most famous
expressionist painting, Death of a Child, was also the one that most outraged and offended his cosmopolitan
audience.
But lest we forget: the performance, the experience and the reflecting
are as nothing in comparison with the cost to those who have lived the
story illustrated by our mother’s sketch. And these lives, these
faces, although pained and as fleeting as photos, have also been
touched by beauty and grace.
For several of our mothers, this sketch represented nothing other than their own reality. I hope we have done them no further violence in the rough and impressionistic strokes left on this canvas.
NB! Text freely adapted from Nancy Scheper-Hughes’s Death Without Weeping - The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil.
Comments and faves
Nós da Montanha (84 months ago | reply)
if De La Tour lived in Brazil, year 2005... he would paint a Pietá like this one.
Scrubber [deleted] (84 months ago | reply)
A great picture, and a strong story and reminder to us living on the suny side that we must not forget these peoples problem ! and make sure that our politicians know that we are aware of how they handle the problem !!!
stacyarrington [deleted] (84 months ago | reply)
Scrubber, I agree completely. This is a fantastic photo!!
Ponybones, moonjazz, and davinca added this photo to their favorites.