{"id":1602,"date":"2025-03-04T18:18:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T02:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu\/community-engagement\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2025-08-29T15:49:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T22:49:00","slug":"san-jose-state-university-king-library-may-8-june-24-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu\/community-engagement\/san-jose-state-university-king-library-may-8-june-24-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose State University, King Library, May 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published by Metro Silicon Valley<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on May 29, 2024 and written by Sharan Street.<\/span><\/p>\n

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San Jose State\u2019s iSchool Curates Children\u2019s Memories of War<\/h1>\n
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Out of the hands of babes come images no child should see<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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HISTORY LESSON \u2018Guardian angels next to the defenders,\u2019 by Nazar, age 16, is one of 70 images on view at MLK Library.<\/p><\/div>

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Located just in front of San Jose State University School of Information sits the\u00a0<\/span>Victory Salute<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>statue depicting SJSU students Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. \u201cIt is nearly impossible not to see and look at it every time I enter and leave the building,\u201d says Anthony Chow, who has been the director of iSchool (as it\u2019s known) since 2021. For him, it\u2019s a reminder of iSchool\u2019s tradition \u201cto stand up for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chow and several of his colleagues recently got a chance to honor that tradition, and the results of their work is on view now in an exhibit titled \u201cChildren Draw War, Not Flowers,\u201d on view through June 24 at Martin Luther King Jr. Library on the SJSU campus.<\/p>\n

The catalyst for the exhibit was Ulia Gosart, who joined iSchool in 2022, around the time that Russia invaded her homeland. Gosart came from the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine, where more than 225,000 citizens congregated after they were displaced by attacks by Russian troops\u2014including 42,805 children. She was in contact with local librarians, who sought help to raise money for a scanner so they could digitize artifacts of Ukraine\u2019s cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyself and another faculty member, Dr. Sue Alman, helped Ulia set up a\u00a0<\/span>GoFundMe account<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and we raised over $7,000,\u201d Dr. Chow explained.<\/p>\n

These librarians were doing more than just protecting books and other cultural riches: they also literally sheltered citizens during Russian attacks. And to provide some art therapy, the Ukrainian Library Association sponsored a drawing contest for children ages 4 to 16 that involved 40 libraries.<\/p>\n

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WARM RECEPTION In attendance at the launch were (front) Sara Clair, Kelly Rausch and Dr. Ulia Gosart with (back) Alfredo Alcantar, Dr. Anthony Chow, Tim Bartolf of XR Libraries and Nick Berber.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

\u201cEvery drawing was displayed in Cherkasy in the library, and winners were announced and then the whole collection was digitized with the scanner that we bought for them,\u201d Gosart explains. All 450 images can be found in the digital archive\u00a0<\/span>Save Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A second\u00a0<\/span>GoFundMe<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>is now active, this time raising $1,000 each for libraries in seven different Ukrainian villages to purchase children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

Hope Amid Despair<\/h4>\n

Seventy of the works are now on view at MLK Library in the exhibit curated by graduate student assistant Sara Clair. In addition to the machinery of war\u2014aerial bombing, armed soldiers, military helicopters, explosions and flames\u2014there are also images of hope: angels, sunflowers, storks, flowers, and the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, all of which symbolize cultural resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYounger children draw weapons and battlefields,\u201d Gosart says. \u201cThe older children have more complex depictions \u2026 more abstract. But little kids draw something they saw or experienced. To be able to actually have a physical connection with that historical evidence, by \u2026 thinking about this picture as something that has been produced a few years ago by a little child, is a very different way of understanding the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the older children\u2014Nazar, age 16\u2014created a work that won plaudits from the Ukranian government. Titled \u201cGuardian angels next to defenders,\u201d the big historical piece shows Ukrainian soldiers next to famous writers, political figures from different times of Ukrainian history. The work stresses that Ukraine \u201cnot only has its own history, its own culture, but also a strong identity as a nation\u2014and this is what the Russian government denies Ukraine,\u201d Gosart says. \u201cIt was almost like a political statement, depicting all these components of history and culture that are significant for the nation to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018Ukraine will win,\u2019 by Dominika, age 15<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

Plans are in the works to make \u201cChildren Draw War Not Flowers\u201d a traveling exhibit, with Syracuse University as a possible next stop. But to ensure that its reach immediately extends beyond MLK Library, Dr. Chow says, he asked the iSchool\u2019s VR team, \u201cconsisting of our VR student assistant, Kelly Rausch, and our amazing VR consultant XRLibraries, to create the VR space.\u201d This\u00a0<\/span>virtual gallery<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>can be accessed anywhere in the world just using a browser. (Note: Those who aren\u2019t accustomed to such online virtual explorations would do well to first move into the middle of each room and then begin perusing the work.)<\/p>\n

Saving a Heritage<\/h4>\n

Rausch says that in addition to the primary goal to \u201creach a wider audience to give the children more room, more voice, to be heard and seen,\u201d the VR exhibit also includes elements that put the artwork into context. A map shows the conflicts along Ukraine\u2019s border, and immersive videos document scenes of combat and aerial bombardment, and separate rooms document the destruction of three major libraries\u2014including the Chernihiv Regional Youth Library, a Neo-Gothic architectural wonder that survived Bolshevik and Nazi bombs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDocumentary footage allows us to tell the story of cultural heritage institutions during wartime. They\u2019ve been intentionally targeted because they house Ukrainian cultural identity and history,\u201d Rausch says. \u201cWe don\u2019t really think of librarians as being part of war efforts. \u2026 how deeply embedded they are in protecting the cultural heritage and spaces and countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the VR technology, SJSU partnered with XRLIbraries, which helps schools and libraries integrate immersive learning into programs. \u201cTim Bartolf of XRLibraries was very much a part in helping me build this space,\u201d Rausch says. Toward the end of June, she and Clair and Gosart will team up with XRLibraries executive director John MacLeod to present their work at the American Library Association\u2019s annual conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID really changed VR. It was moving quite slowly and it got a quick push,\u201d Rausch says. \u201cIt\u2019s also getting a push through AI, which is making it easier and faster to create spaces and imagery. There\u2019s a lot more of this ahead, I guarantee it, and it\u2019s just a privilege to be part of it.\u201d She adds, \u201cDr. Chow understands that this is a part of information science and technology. People are confused why libraries would be dabbling with VR but its applications are huge and the library\u2019s history with digital literacy has always been there. The first place anybody could\u00a0<\/span>go<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>to the internet was in the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018I paint the war with bright colors,\u2019 by Ruslan, age 11.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

An elementary school librarian as well, Rausch says she showed some students the VR exhibit. \u201cThey have never been more engaged in anything that I have tried to show them or teach them. They were so quiet and so intent and so curious, and they were just floored by the imagery that the kids were creating,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been one of the most impactful projects I\u2019ve ever worked on,\u201d Rausch asserts. \u201cI think it makes what is happening in Ukraine physically tangible here in the United States. Everybody has kind of forgotten about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eyewitnesses to History<\/h4>\n

For Gosart, forgetting about the conflict in Ukraine is impossible. She still has close ties to her homeland and is in constant contact with friends. \u201cA few people told me, especially at the beginning, this is not a good cause. Who thinks about libraries when people are dying and houses are being destroyed?\u201d But she points out that libraries serve as defenders of truth in a war in which disinformation is a major weapon brandished by Russia.<\/p>\n

Gosart recalls listening to an interview with an 8-year-old girl who had depicted images of bombs falling while civilians\u2014pictured as stick figures\u2014cowered underground in bomb shelters. The girl said she wanted to depict \u201cfear and anxiety that some people feel,\u201d but asserted her belief in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and her hopes for victory and her father\u2019s return from the front lines. \u201cEvery time I talk about this I start crying,\u201d Gosart says, explaining that the child\u2019s father was killed a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n

While the drawings function as a form of art therapy, allowing the children affected by war to process their experiences, Gosart explains that she has another use for them in mind. \u201cFor me, why I wanted to do this and why I pressed on digitizing every single item and creating a collection of these items, I wanted to have evidence of the war crimes to be made, first of all, and collected to be preserved primarily with the hope of using these drawings as evidence of the war crimes that could be used at international tribunals.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018Liberation of Ukrainian cities,\u2019 by Mariia, age 8.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

She points out that\u00a0<\/span>drawings by children in Darfur<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>were accepted in 2007 by the International Criminal Court as contextual evidence of crimes committed in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201dI also worked in Kosovo after the war and I collected drawings from children. The themes and the colors are quite similar,\u201d Gosart explains. \u201cThat was something that I had in mind and I still have in mind because I believe that these are very powerful eyewitness reports of crimes against the most vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, she believes these drawings can help people gain some understanding of what life during wartime is really like. \u201cTo read about it is one thing, but to actually see what\u2019s happening on the battlefields or to see people being wounded or the city being occupied is quite powerful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what contemporary warfare is all about,\u201d Gosart says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we have to learn how to deal with and learn how to stop as a global community, or to lessen the impact of this horror on civilians\u2014and children particularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explore the VR exhibit of\u00a0<\/span>Children Draw War, Not Flowers<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

See all 450 images in the\u00a0<\/span>SUCHO gallery<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Donate to a\u00a0<\/span>GoFundMe<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>to support book purchases for Ukrainian libraries.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Watch related conference, tour and interviews:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n