Art Across Borders is an exhibit produced by the Babylon Art and Cultural Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota which is a collectively run, volunteer staffed gallery and performance space. Their goal is to bring art and social activism together, to provide a vital, community accessible space where people can meet, interact and work for social change.

It is the their belief (and ours) that art is a powerful means of raising cross-cultural awareness, creating a dialogue between peoples that have been caught in a long history of misconceptions about each other, and of providing a human face to peoples that have been largely vilified.

In the late summer and early fall of 2002, organizers of Art Across Borders traveled to Iraq on a Voices in the Wilderness sponsored delegation. Along with much needed medical supplies and children’s clothing, delegates also delivered hundreds of pounds of art materials donated by artists in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a gesture of solidarity.

After ten days in Iraq, organizers then traveled to the occupied territories of Palestine, participating in non-violent direct action in support of Palestinian human rights, working with the International Solidarity Movement. Organizers spent several weeks in Palestine meeting with and working with artists there.

The goal with this exhibit, first and foremost, is to provide an opportunity for Iraqi and Palestinian artists to speak in their own voices about the conditions in their countries. Through their art, these artists reflect the greater humanity of countries who’s individuality and rich cultures have been drowned in a sea of political maneuvering. We hope that this exposure of the world audience to these art works will reassert the place of Iraqis and Palestinians in the world’s conscience.

Secondly, this exhibit will be used to create a dialogue about the conditions these works reflect. We invite you to join with us in this process of opening doors to a discussion that will elevate our own understanding of our place in the world, and the commonality and vitality of the human existence, no matter where a person happens to live.

Lastly, this exhibit is a beginning rather than a final product. The exchange with Iraqi and Palestinian artists will continue through the sharing of ideas, technique and work, that fosters a person to person, artist to artist dialogue which will weaken the dangerous and destructive divisions that are being drawn through the world by forces greater than the average human being.