jkadircannon@gmail.com

For Immediate Release:

Cannon's Performance, Movie and Exhibition travels to Japan & China

Art for International Peace Activism:

An Artist Works for Global Peace

Artist J. Kadir Cannon will travel this spring, from his home in Narberth, PA to Japan and China, because he believes that artists, as observers of society, are uniquely positioned to be agents for social change in society. Joining the ranks of artists like Picasso and Goya who have forced the public to face the horrors of war, Cannon is working to create an international alliance of artists who will help change the militaristic course of today’s global society. To begin this process of artists joining in peace making, Cannon will do workshops, create improvisational peace actions, and show his anti-war movie in Japan and China this spring.

In Japan, he will present programs in Hiroshima and work with members of the World Friendship Center. He will give public art performances and presentations, visit schools, and engage in community discussions with artists, educators, and peace activists. Cannon will present his 31-minute movie Who’s Telling our Story? with his live narration and Japanese subtitles. The movie/performance uses images from his art exhibition, Anguished Art: Outcries for Peace, which has been exhibited in several different galleries in the United States. This video performance questions the role of corporate and military interventions in modern life and asks viewers to think critically about the media inaccuracies and inadequacies inhibiting thoughtful and peaceful global citizenship. Premiered at Wilmington College’s Westheimer Peace Symposium in October 2005, Cannon’s film movingly depicts the horror and futility of war, and admonishes us, as does war correspondent Chris Hedges, to “guard against the myth of war and the drug of war” to redirect our focus on peace.

From Hiroshima, Cannon will travel to Kyoto and Toyohashi, Japan. In Toyohashi, he will direct an art collaboration performance with local artists and activists. They will stage a joint public Peace Art Performance at Toyohashi Station on April 23rd. Using banners, masks and large painted scrolls, they will create an artistic piece protesting proposed re-militarization of Japanese society through changes to the Japanese constitution and the expansion of the United States military and nuclear arsenal in Japan and through out the world.

From Japan, he will travel to Beijing, Bagualing, Rugao, and Shanghai, China to promote greater understanding between the United States and China. Cannon will meet with innovative artists to initiate a joint art exchange exhibition and symposium to be presented in both China and the United Stated. This joint exhibition, One World Art Alliance, will encompass themes of peaceful resolution of conflict, understanding of diverse cultures, and the recognition of the one human family.

Cannon will be traveling with his wife, Sue, an educator, who will be speaking at various schools and university classes in Japan and China, eliciting children’s expressions of peace in poetry and outlining peace education strategies for future teachers. Many of their activities will be collaborations as a husband-and-wife-team.

For further information on Cannon’s artwork, please visit his website at www.jkadircannon.com paying special attention to the Human Cost of War gallery and the Movies and Current Exhibitions sections.