The Children of Sorrow
Alvaro Ybarra Zavala
“The Children of Sorrow” is an exhibition designed so that the people directly affected by crises in societies ignored by the international community can have a voice and be heard. It is an appeal that makes us stop and think, recalling real-life situations that once made headlines around the world but have now sunk into oblivion, to widespread indifference. This oblivion means that a second generation is now the victim of problems we have forgotten but which, unfortunately, are still there and still killing people. The war in Chechnya, conflict in Colombia, ethnic cleansing in Darfur and violence in Uganda are just a few examples of armed conflict that seemed to have been submerged by the all-embracing wave of the war against terrorism.
Preview
Endemic issues such as the exploitation of children and the AIDS epidemic no longer make headlines, and yet there are more and more victims of these scourges, as can be seen with the annual statistics published by international organizations. Other issues such as cancer in third world countries, the effect of an end to the agreement on generic drugs, and the lack of concern for the plight of native communities in Latin America are all real situations that attract no interest as they only affect third world countries. The exhibition on “Children of Sorrow” endeavors to show that in all these very real but forgotten situations, a new generation of victims is now growing up, to the general indifference of the broader community.
