One Million Bones

The Whitty Art Committy, led by associate professor Katie Creyts, hosted a bone making night in the Lied Art Center on November 5th, this past Monday night, from 7 to 10 PM.

Stations with newspaper with masking and plaster cast tapes, plaster blocks for carving, and clay (with a skeleton model courtesy of art department professor Gordon Wilson) were available for participants. It was low key, with soft lighting and laid back music, to give participants a better focus on making bones and reading the survivor stories projected onto screens in both of the bone making areas.  

The number of bones hasn't been counted, but there were about fifty newspaper bones, more than half a dozen plaster block bones... and the picture below two of three benchtops covered in clay bones.

Each of those is a dollar!

One Million Bones is a collaborative art installation intended to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Africa and funds for victims and displaced survivors of genocide specifically in Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burma. They aim to cover the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with one million bones this spring.

For each bone on the National Mall, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate one dollar to CARE. 

Of course, the organization also recognizes genocide on a global scale and presents information about other populations experiencing devastatingly violent conflicts, such as Pakistan and Iraq, and also about proposed and instituted measures in genocide prevention. 

Whitworth student Abbey Cook is one of the representatives of Washington state, working to make bone making nights like ours at Whitworth happen, collect bones (her goal: seven thousand bones), and spread the activism-inspiring message of One Million Bones. 

If you missed the bone making event at Whitworth, you can visit their page to learn about making and donating bones. Bones can be made of clay, plaster tape, wood, fabric, and plaster, and shouldn't contain materials that may mold, rot, attract pests, or contain actual bone matter. 

Whitworth's bone making night was what we hoped it would be; we all made lots of bones, and some great conversations took place. It was calm, but people were getting creative and asking questions. Genocide is a matter that is widely recognized, but not very well understood. The night was a quiet but effective way to start some conversations with one or two people at a time, taking time to concentrate on the reality of suffering, violence, and forced displacement and separation of families and individuals in Africa. The survivor stories on the screen prompted better understanding of the true meaning of the event, in genocide in Africa, and gave One Million Bones faces to the cause of making and collecting one million man-made bones. 

Making newspaper and plaster tape bones.