A few years ago, I wanted to get closer to children.
Not just through my paintings in toys or books,
but being there, face to face,
giving workshops, painting with them, seeing them create.
In addition to this, and for some time, I wanted to be helpful,
but I didn't know how.
If I should support a NGO or should work on my own project.
One night,
I was waiting for a bus that wasn't arriving,
and suddenly, not thinking about anything in particular,
I had a vision of a bright ad
that read:
"Travel around the world giving free art workshops for children."
It was crazy.
I didn't know where to start organizing something like that,
I didn't have the money, I had nothing.
But I thought it was the best plan in the world.
By the time I got on the bus, I already knew that I'd do it.
I had faith and worked very hard in this project.
I decided that I'd design it myself.
To imagine and to organize it,
I thought about what I would have liked to attend when I was a kid.
This way I thought about every workshop, every detail.
I'd start from the north of Argentina,
and I'd continue through Latin America, Africa,
Asia, and Europe.
Giving workshops in schools, children's hospitals, orphanages,
libraries, markets,
and on the streets.
In the jungle, in the mountains.
In big cities and in very tiny and remote villages.
Places that were not even included in travel guides
or travel agencies.
I feel that we underestimate...
that we underestimate children
in their abilities to feel, think, and say.
We think they are some kind of container that we have to fill up
with things and information.
Obviously, they are in their early stage of development,
but they also have things to say.
I feel that generally, they aren't granted this space where we should listen to them.
This is my main goal:
give children a space to express themselves
so that later, children from other places,
get to know these other children.
From what I have seen, wherever they are,
they watch the same movies,
the same cartoons,
play the same games,
but what do they know about each other?
What does a child in Argentina knows about a child in Ecuador?
Or a child from France about a child from Kenya?
The truth is, nothing.
Before we start painting in the workshops,
we always show them videos of children
from previous countries we've visited.
For example, in an afternoon, in Tokyo,
tons of Japanese kids were able to learn a bit more about Argentina,
Peru, Mexico.
From this same desire to get them connected,
we created another part of the project,
the gift chain.
We create a video where a child introduce him or herself,
and tell us something about their lives.
About their families, the place where they live.
They tell us about their favorite toy, their favorite food,
and they tell us about a dream.
Then I ask them to pick something
from their own things to give to a boy or a girl in the next country.
And they also paint something
for that child in the next country.
The chain started in Argentina,
continued in 15 more countries,
and there's still a lot ahead.
This way, through the eyes of other children,
they learn about new realities.
It's not the same William's life, who has 9 siblings,
compared to Tzo Luo's who is, like most Chinese, the only child.
It's very different for Christopher's,
who lives surrounded by rabbits and cows,
compared to Simone's, who is growing up in a mega city.
Life is very different for Mikija,
who after school can go and play with his friends,
compared to Mario's, who has to go to work.
I always develop emotional attachment, and it's hard to leave each place.
But I think I have accomplished my mission
if I can at least leave a mark, a small footprint.
Look.
(Video) 1st child: What I feel when I paint
is that I'm an artist.
2nd child: It's when someone frees their ideas.
3rd child: This way I can release my feelings.
All my feeling I express them through my painings
and this way I feel better.
4th child: You are in a world where you can do whatever you want.
5th child: My paintings express my happiness and everything that I'd want.
My paintings are my imagination.
Japanese: When I paint, I feel like I enter a new world,
where everything that I'm painting lives,
and I have a lot of fun in that world.
6th child: When I drew the superhero, I felt brave.
I felt...
that I was in the company of other people.
7th child: We can paint on a tree trunk,
on stones, on sticks,
on wood, on the sidewalk,
anywhere.
7th child: (Japanese) Sometimes, there are things that I don't know how to express.
so I paint them.
8th child: When I paint, it's a dream.
(Applause)
I feel that it's a pity
that in schools, generally, art is considered secondary,
something less important,
just for recreational purposes,
and not something educational.
I wished that at school they'd dance more,
sing more and paint more.
In all the places we visit,
I suggested to the kids to invent a superhero, something local.
I encourage them to think about what they wish for,
and moreover, about the needs of their communities.
In the north of Colombia
there was a terrible drought,
it had not rained in months,
they had lost their crops,
and they really needed water.
But a boy draw the solution:
he created a superhero who could shoot lightnings
to the sky,
and make it rain.
Later, in Ecuador,
we went to the Amazon,
we were in the jungle, with a indigenous community.
It was incredible to see them paint for the first time in their lives.
You can't imagine their reaction when they discovered
that by mixing blue and yellow
they could get the green of their trees.
A daily occurrence for some people
could be something totally new for others.
Then we arrived in Guatemala,
and we painted with children working in the main market.
Children who don't go to school
because they have to work there helping out their parents.
Those fruits and vegetables that were part of their daily duties,
at least during that afternoon,
turned out into characters and animals.
It's about giving a new meaning,
and that's what I try to do all the time.
In Mexico, during the Day of the Dead
when all the community gather to be with their departed loved ones,
we went to the cemetery
and found a lot of children wandering around.
We created a group with a few,
and I asked their opinions
and what life and death were for them.
Then, we took out our crayons and sheets of paper and started to paint.
They did one drawing related to life, and one related to death.
And everything was good, the way how they flow,
the things that the children said,
that made me think how much we continue to underestimate them.
How there are still topics that are taboo
at school and even at home.
I think it'd be great to be able to talk to them
about sexuality,
gender violence,
- which was quite present in all the places we went to -
or even death.
What we're doing through silence
is raising children
who will keep on repeating the same model.
I'd like to share with you some of the things I learned.
From the beginning of this project
a lot of people have offered to help me.
In every country, and in every little town we'd go
they open up the doors of their house,
they invite us to eat, to stay, they give us materials.
Actually, they make me feel I'm home even when I'm so far away;
I'm a little bit at home.
But most of the time I hear people saying the opposite.
But I don't think the world is that horrible and unsafe place
where nobody cares about the other.
I also learned that trust is the most important thing
that a child needs to be able to create.
It's all about giving them trust.
So that they can enjoy what they do
instead of doing it like a test and then getting stuck.
And this is the case of any artistic activity.
Even for me, for you,
who think that you are no able
to paint, to write, to sing, to dance.
The children taught me
that when they can find joy in only walking the walk,
without much judgment or comparing themselves to their neighbors,
they are much happier.
We know children who have a hard time.
Who suffered from abuse, violence,
abandonment, extreme poverty.
Children who cannot go to school
because they have to work.
But even so, in our workshops, when they paint their dreams,
I find out that they want to be singers, architects, teachers, doctors,
like any other child.
It's very easy to tag and stigmatize.
But no child is born evil,
no child is violent per se.
All they need it's an opportunity.
In the jungle, in Peru,
we also went to the Amazon, with the Awajun community,
and I remember the school principal telling me,
"Don't expect great things
because these children know handicraft but they never paint."
Well, they painted the most amazing paintings in all my trip.
It was incredible the power of observation these children of the jungle had,
and how they were able to draw their surroundings, just as they are.
Every detail, every bird, and every tree.
I had a similar experience in a school
where there were blind children suffering from the Down syndrome
and brain damage.
One of the things we create in the workshops
are self-portraits.
I never thought about underestimating them.
We did what we always do.
And if someone has any doubts about their ability to express themselves,
look at these amazing drawings they created.
Just as I feel that I can teach these children,
I also learn from them.
Not long ago, in Thailand, I was walking on the street,
met with some children, and we started to paint.
I met a little girl I got a special connection with,
and for a little, we were inseparable.
I looked at her painting and I saw two people.
I asked her who they were and she pointed at herself and at me.
At me, a guy she had never seen before, someone that she has just met,
and possibly would never see again.
It's incredible how children can open up so much.
And so it's our responsibility as adults.
Just one word can open them up a lot
or close them up a lot.
If we tell them that the sun has to be yellow,
that grass has to be green,
that their characters need to be leaning
or otherwise, it'll look as they are flying;
instead of helping them to be creative,
we are curbing their imagination.
In Asia, even with the help of an interpreter,
we can't chat like in Latin America.
So we use games,
songs, videos and, of course, paintings.
I think it's key, when you're in front of a group of children,
to be able to reinvent yourself,
to be creative, to absorb what's happening.
Not all the children are the same, not even among siblings.
It's the adult who should adapt
instead of having a formula
and expect always the same result.
More than a year ago,
I said goodbye to my dog, Tai,
and left home.
I have already traveled all Latin America and most of Asia,
in fact, I just flew here from India today
and the day after tomorrow I'll be going back.
And there's still a lot ahead.
Soon, we will meet with children from the Gaza Strip, in Palestine.
With refugee children, African children.
ONU and UNICEF invite us to give workshops,
something that I'd have never imagined.
After these two years,
I'd have painted with more than 10,000 children from 40 countries,
And there's still a lot ahead.
But we'll be back,
and we'll do the same here, in Argentina, from Ushuaia to La Quiaca,
from coast to coast.
We are going to create moving exhibitions with these children's paintings.
And a book, full of children's pictures, stories and of course, paintings.
We are making a movie,
a documentary, so that we can share this with many more people.
All of this is called "Small Big Worlds"
and what started as the trip of my life
turned out to be the project of my life.
But it started as a dream.
And talking about dreams, I want you to meet Elizabeth.
(video) Elizabeth: When I was small, very small,
I wanted to be a singer,
a sanitation worker, work with my dad;
but my dad used to say no, that the job wasn't for me.
My father is an engineer.
He used to say no, that I wouldn't know how to do it.
But I kept on telling him, again and again...
My advice to all the children in the world
is that they should follow their dream.
Don't let anyone get in your way.
If your parents don't support you,
you should fight for your dreams!
What I want now is to be a gynecologist.
To help all women have children.
But sometimes, I feel that that's not my dream,
that I have another one.
I don't know what it is.
So I have to go searching for it,
let it come to me or I'll go to it.
Together: Small Big Worlds!
Argentina!
Bolivia!
Peru!
Ecuador!
Colombia!
Guatemala!
Mexico!
Cuba!
Japan!
China!
Vietnam!
Laos!
Thailand!
Burma!
Cambodia!
Indonesia!
Nepal!
India!
[Small Big Worlds pequeniosgrandesmundos.org]
(Applause)
Every day I'm grateful that I got inspired
to create "Small Big Worlds",
and that I can paint with children from all around the world.
The other day, a boy from a village, in the middle of the mountains in Nepal
wrapped it up it perfectly.
He painted the Earth and wrote:
"I also live on this planet."
Thank you very much.
(Applause)