By Tova O’Brien
Thousands of children have been sent to Thailand as refugees as a result of the conflict in military-occupied Burma.
Two Wellingtonians took it upon themselves to introduce those children to art, creating a lot more than a few pretty pictures in the process.
Patrick Shepherd and Josh Bahlman spent six weeks in Thailand teaching Burmese refugee children the finer points of photography and painting – something the children embraced with all the intensity of an artist.
“One of the kids would sit there on his desk drawing with his finger if he didn't have a bit of paper, and if you put something in front of him he just wouldn't stop,” Josh Bahlam says.
“People would be talking to him and he'd just be head down just chewing through it, everyone would be packed up and he'd just be drawing away.”
Fourteen New Zealand artists were then asked to pick a child's masterpiece and create a work in response.
“I've just seem some of the pieces for the first time today and I'm still a little bit blown away,” says Mr Bahlman. “They've done some incredible interpretations of what the kids have done, some really literal and some really abstract, but all incredible.”
The Good Karma Project was created in cahoots with charity Children on the Edge. “We work with children and unaccompanied children, so those are children who have been orphaned by the conflict that is in Burma and others unaccompanied, and the reason they're unaccompanied is that it's no longer safe for them to live in their own villages,” says Shelly Mansfield of Children on the Edge.
But it's hard to tell that these children are some of the world's most marginalised.
“They're happy children and they don't need X Boxes and they don't need Playstations,” Ms Mansfield says.
“They're very, very inspiring and they will change your life.”
Mr Shepherd says the children don’t take anything for granted.
“A lot of kids on this side of the world who think, ‘ah, no school again’, but over there it's like they're really excited, they're just so stoked that they've got education cause it's a chance for them to improve their situation and a chance for things to change in Burma,” he says.
All the artworks are on display at Wellington's Toi Poneke gallery and will be auctioned off on Wednesday, with all proceeds going straight back to the children.
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