As part of Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages 2024, the Peace Cranes project has involved thousands of children from the North East of England and across the world. Exhibitions in Newcastle and Durham are displaying their colourful paper birds in March and April, with messages of peace in many languages.
Some will be sent to Japan after the Festival to be part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial children’s exhibition at Sadako Sasaki’s memorial. It is a moving tribute and reflects the message inscribed on her statue: This is our Cry, This is our Prayer, Peace in the World.
In Japanese folklore, the crane is seen as a symbol of peace, said to live for 1,000 years. Furthermore, Senbazuru (‘to fold 1,000 origami cranes’) comes from an ancient Japanese legend declaring a wish will be granted to anyone who creates them.
Sadako Sasaki folded cranes, whilst being treated for leukaemia following the fallout from the Hiroshima atomic bomb in 1945. She died aged 12, but children from Japan and all over the world began a movement, folding cranes and sending them to the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima. This project involved 12,000 school children in this amazing movement.
Click here to watch a short film about the project with comments from project lead Brian Stobie, artist and curator Jo Shippen and Newcastle College students who helped making the displays, with images from the Newcastle Civic Centre display, made by Newcastle City Council communications team.
Schools from across the region and the world
The Peace Cranes project is one of many participatory activities which is being delivered free, as part of Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages. Running for the 4th time this year, the Festival is hosted and co-ordinated by International Newcastle, with a wide range of local, regional and national partners delivering events and activities for schools in the North East, with some activities open to UK and international schools.
80 schools from the North East of England were involved in making Peace Cranes and Brian Stobie (Durham County Council International Team) who had the idea to include this project as part of our Festival, engaged his international school contacts, with birds flying in from 134 schools across the world: India, USA, Spain, Slovakia, Romania, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Germany, France, Finland, Czech Republic, Croatia, Austria.
Creating the multicoloured, multilingual displays
Schools were asked to send 30 paper birds each from the ones they had created. In March, over 5,000 Peace Cranes flew in to Newcastle Civic Centre, the centre of operations for sorting them and putting the exhibitions together.
Newcastle College alumnus and Fashion and retail specialist, Jo Shippen, worked with a dedicated team of student volunteers from Newcastle College (Digital and Creative Industries), spending three days stringing the birds to form a colourful display for Durham.
Sarah Edgar (Newcastle City Council, School Effectiveness) strung the birds to create the display for Newcastle Civic Centre, with a silhouette of Sadako Sasaki created by Karl Mercer from Newcastle College (Digital and Creative Industries) on display with the Peace Cranes there.
Pictured above: Artist Jo Shippen with Newcastle College (Digital and Creative Industries) Fashion and Photography students preparing the displays: Tilly Yates, Noah Hewitt, Freya MacDonald, Logen Lee Henderson, Alfie Flounders, Jordan Hodgson, Samantha Black, Lamin Gibbon, Scott Haddow.
The display of Peace Cranes at Newcastle Civic Centre
Visitors to Newcastle Civic Centre can see the wonderful rainbow display of Peace Cranes in the arches and at the reception. There is a code to scan for people to make their own Peace Cranes.
The display at Prince Bishops Shopping Centre in Durham
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone involved in this incredible project:
- All the schools from the North East, UK and across the world and especially, the children and young people involved in creating these wonderful birds and sharing their messages of peace.
- Newcastle College (Digital and Creative Industries) for helping make the displays. Staff member, Karl Mercer and Students: Tilly Yates, Noah Hewitt, Freya MacDonald, Logen Lee Henderson, Alfie Flounders, Jordan Hodgson, Samantha Black, Lamin Gibbon, Scott Haddow.
- Jo Shippen and Sarah Edgar for overseeing and creating the displays in Newcastle and Durham and Sarah and Declan Baharini (International Newcastle) for engaging the North East schools in the project.
- Brian Stobie (International Durham, Durham County Council) for the idea and developing this project for the Festival and for engaging international schools in the project.
- The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum for accepting our Peace Cranes as part of the children’s display in Japan.
- Sadako Sasaki for her inspiration to children across the world in calling for peace.