Whenever anyone is taken from us through violence, something we can never measure is lost with them. John Lennon’s death made us poorer and more vulnerable but Yoko Ono has been determined to keep their message alive in the public mind. Liverpool’s free exhibition, Double Fantasy, on until 3rd November 2019, is part of that.
I smiled to see that today’s children still draw John Lennon and associate him with love and peace, but how much better if he were still alive today, making points amplified by his fame in that clear, caustic, memorable way?
Our need is keen. If children are given a wall to scribble on, such as this one at Double Fantasy, plus some crayons and a little encouragement, the hope and brightness we see here streams effortlessly out. But this child was drawing oblivious that someone had seen fit to write a political slogan above her in another language claiming a disputed territory. It seemed ironic: a reminder, if we needed one, that peace isn’t all airy fairy – it has to engage with those who think their current contention outweighs the rights of children to enjoy being children.
I wish I could share these pictures for Lines&Squares with a child’s innocence, without further comment, as I had hoped when walking through Double Fantasy, but I can’t. Perhaps I’m not meant to.
One of the things the exhibition asks is that we keep our eyes open when, from our relative position of safety, we want to flinch away.
In sharing pictures for peace, I wanted to highlight all the world’s conflicts, rather than ‘just’ the one foremost in today’s news, dire though it may be. We have to look beyond the relatively few things our parochial newspapers think we should know to see a global perspective. After searching, I came up with Vision of Humanity’s Global Peace Index. Viewed on a decent sized screen rather than a smartphone, it’s a great way to compare indicators affecting peace by country and learn more about the world we share.
Susan Rushton 
Powerful
This post just scratches the surface of the exhibition.
That’s an exhibition worth going too. The walls messages are powerful especially with the child drawing on it.
The colourfulness adds something too.
It certainly does.
Ah. I missed out on our recent visit then. I got sick of the Beatles being shoved in our faces, as though they were the only people Liverpool had ever produced. I gave it a miss. Our loss.
I’m sure Liverpool will call you back again.
Yes!
Thanks so much for the link to the Global Peace Index, too.
I’m glad you found it interesting.
Looks like a good exhibit. Not so much about them here in the states.
It is a fascinating exhibition with many layers – ideas about peace, fame and two people who were just an everyday couple.
A very good and thought provoking post. Thank you.
Thanks, Anne.
Your observation about letting children be children is so good. Childhood seems to me a marker of peace. The Global Peace Index is right to point out the contradiction between apparent signs of peacefulness along with high stress and worry. You’re right about the loss that comes with violent death — I wish we didn’t know that so well.
I was reading that when Yoko Ono visited the exhibition, she asked for a change to be made to the statement that over 1,400,000 people had been killed by guns since John Lennon’s death, so that it was up to date. Having first-hand knowledge, you can easily imagine she would understand that every one must count.
A sobering piece, and I was sad but not surprised to find out the index of the United Sates. Sigh. Yes, Imagine.
An index almost seems too cold a way of putting it. Facts are surprisingly hard to come by in today’s climate – you would have thought that technology would have made things so much easier.
What a thought provoking post, and so many creative lines. Thank you so much for sharing as part of lines and squares.
PS and my apologies for the delay in visiting. WordPress had hidden your pingback, and only picked it up this morning when I visited the admin page.
I had a similar issue with your pingback – I only found it today.
Glad you found . . . .:-)
and the visions of humanity is fascinating . . .
I agree. Double Fantasy makes you think about our recent cultural history and about how the personal and global are related.
Beautiful post!
Thank you!