Brian McCarty's nonprofit provides art therapy to kids who have escaped conflicts, then transforms some of their traumatic drawings into toy dioramas to help people understand the horrors of war.
Through her drawing, a young Syrian refugee girl revealed her feelings of intense isolation and guilt over surviving a missile strike that had killed all of her close family. She shared her feelings in a 2016 group-based intervention at a Kayany Foundation school near the Lebanon-Syria border. The girl's name has been pixelated on the top right of her drawing to preserve anonymity.
Photographer and visual artist Brian McCarty has had first-hand glimpses of the devastating toll war can have on a person ever since a visit to Croatia in 1996. Seeing the destruction from its war of independence made him think of how his loved ones were affected by an earlier war. "I had thought about conversations with my father about Vietnam and his experience," McCarty said."He was extremely reluctant to share anything really in-depth, personal."
Except, that is, when the two were playing with toy soldiers when McCarty was a kid. Then McCarty's father would tell him war stories about his grandfather, who served in World War II."I found letters that my father wrote home to my mom from Vietnam, like the first time he was shot at, or the Tet Offensive," McCarty said."And decided to re-create those moments with a vintage 1960s, off-the-shelf G.I. Joe figure.
McCarty took photos of the scenes he re-created, which soon led to another idea of how he could use his art to help people heal from the horrors of war.