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Towards the last two months of my last visit to India in the spring of 2012, I encountered the Tibetan community in exile in India experiencing painful news of their people self-immolating in fire one after another in China-occupied Tibet. My experiences in the past visits in India (drawing a cremation site in Varanasi, documenting fire pits, cremation alters, and contemplating on life and death around fire) synchronized with this particular movement, an extreme way of ‘offering’ their bodies to ‘fire’ for asking freedom and peace.I could not help drawing large and small drawings as emotional response and with a sense of mourning.

After coming back to Vancouver, the self-immolation kept happening and I felt that my personal and professional task is not finished.

I have come back to India to continue to document and draw under the same theme. tomoyoihaya@hotmail.com

14 August 2022

Hands



手を動かして、
器に水を汲んで喉が乾いている人に。
動物や植物、大地にも。
手を動かして、
食べ物をつくってわけあうこと。

ペンをとって詩やお話をかいたり、
筆をとって絵をかいたり、
楽器を弾いたり、
みんなの心が幸せになるでしょう。

手は
１３，０００発の核爆弾や
１０億の銃や
２６００の爆弾を落とす飛行機や
何十万の戦車を作るために
あるのではありません。

それを設計した心と手
それらを工場で製造した心と手
それらを売って大儲けした心と手
それを使って人を殺した心と手は

幸せでしょうか？

この大きな生命体の中の一つとして生まれてきたのなら
生命体で共に生きるものたちを破壊するために
手を使わないでください。


Use your hands
Fill a bowl with water for those who are thirsty
For animals and plants
Use your hands
Cook and share food

Write poems and stories
Draw, paint, dance, and play music
Everyone's heart will be happy


 13,000 nuclear bombs
 One billion guns, one billion guns
 2,600 airplanes that drop bombs
Hundreds of thousands of tanks

The  mind and hands that designed them
The mind and hands that manufactured them in a factory
The mind  and hands that have made a fortune by selling them
The mind and hands that used it to kill people.

Where is happiness?

Each life is preciously given as one of the large organism
Hands are not made to destroy those who are living together