This piece is about the Rebuilding of Rwanda after the genocide and the forgiveness programs that the church initiated to restore the community.

For this project I attempted to display the duality in what is going on in Rwanda. I find it very inspirational that they were able to rebuild from basically shattered ruins. So I tried to symbolize that the overall arrangement of my sculpture. I used a lot of representative imagery in this piece to try to communicate the overall feeling and message that I was looking for. The sculpture is essentially an artillery shell that has succumbed to the more overpowering forces of the spirit. Its hull has been ripped open by what appears to be a force coming from within, exposing a reliquary-like composite of sticks, stones and bones. The sticks build a house, representing the renewal and rebuilding of Rwanda, on top of a foundation of bones, meant to represent the deceased victims of the genocide, with the bottom foundation of stones to represent the history before the genocide. Above the house is the African symbol of faith, which is accompanied by the African symbol of forgiveness that is burned into the shell’s burlap tip. And of course, the artillery shell is meant to represent that murderous violence that enacted the genocide.