Deryk's Trip to Iraq in 2002

Gallery of Video Stills from Deryk's Trip to Baghdad
Photographs of Deryk's Sculpture

Report from Deryk in Baghdad
(October 1, 2002 - part one)

I have now been in Baghdad for several days and am slowly adapting to the time change, the heat, the overwhelming pollution, and the street chaos. I have been invited by the minister of culture to come to Baghdad to supervise the casting of my bronze sculpture for my Peace Sanctuary project in British Columbia, Canada.

There is a different pace and schedule for getting things done here, but we are slowly making progress. I brought a small plaster model of the sculpture with me and the plan is to scale this up to a full scale replica of the final design. These will be made of plaster, chicken wire, and steel. This is then used to make a mold for casting the shapes in bronze.

The objective is to create two - large twenty four feet tall rock like structures which will represent the mother and father. A smaller nine foot piece will represent the child figure. They will be cast in ten to twelve tons of bronze. I will be doing fund raising in order to have the pieces brought back to Canada by ship. (Donations would be welcome.)

The sculpture will then be trucked up to Hudson's Hope eventually and welded together in place at the center of my Peace Sanctuary design. I have no timetable, but we expect to have the Baghdad foundary work completed in three to four months. It will all take time but I have faith that we will get there eventually - somehow.

I will be here until near the end of Oct. at which point the craftsmen should have the full scale replica built.I will be working on this also. After that, they can do the final work of casting the bronze without me.

I have requested that fragments of American bombs be melted into the bronze material for my sculpture and this will be done. (There is no shortage of bomb material that drops from the sky every day. There have been over eighty thousand flights over Baghdad in the past few years.) The Iraqi people are very friendly and love Canadians. They are very much aware that Canada has said no to support for the bombing. They are resigned to what is going to happen. They ask: What worse can America do than what they have already done to us? The equivelent tonnage of explosives of seven atomic bombs has been dropped on Iraq. There is not one family that has not lost a son, daughter, mother or father. Twenty eight thousand children died in the first eight months of the gulf war. I have been in Baghdad three times now. In 1999 I saw total devastation and human suffering. The hospitals broke my heart. In the spring of 2002 I saw improvements. This trip, I get a feeling that the people actually are starting to have hope for the first time in twelve years. And just as this happens, they are about to see their water supply pipes, sewage pipes, electrical grid, schools and hospitals, ruined once again. Not to mention the tens of thousands of human lives that will be lost again.

My Peace Sanctuary is being created so that people might reflect on some of these things. I want people to understand that when we drop bombs onto families on the other side of the world, we are brutalising and destroying ourselves as much as anyone else.

When future generations feel discouraged and discover my sanctuary, I want them to know that others have been here and left a footprint in the sand. That they are not alone in their despair. Hope can only be realized in the promotion of dialogue and discussion. I hope to add to this story over the coming couple of weeks.

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