American University community members observed a display of Israeli and Palestinian children’s drawings of home as part of a collaborative exhibit event hosted by the Project on Civic Dialogue and Innocent Knowledge in McDowell Formal Lounge on April 13.
The Innocent Knowledge project was created by Brown University students Canaan Estes and Taher Vahanvaty in the last 20 months and gathers digital images of children’s drawings created from October 2024 to June 2025 in 15 communities across Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
“Nearly four hundred drawings — made in classrooms, kitchens, makeshift studios, open courtyards, and emergency tents — offer a rare and intimate glimpse into how young people experience a deeply fractured and unequal landscape,” according to the Innocent Knowledge website.
The exhibition was open for viewing from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with tables for the drawings and an accompanying QR code beside each drawing with more information. Behind the tables was an area for the dialogue and information sessions, which was open for all students to reserve throughout the day.
The dialogue sessions, open to up to eight participants and led by a trained Project Civic Dialogue facilitator, provided guiding questions examining children’s innocence and offered an opportunity to critique the Innocent Knowledge project.
The drawings were separated into paired categories, including family and home, innocence and knowledge, violence and loss, hope and resilience, identity and belonging and butterflies and dreams. Drawings depicted the children’s families, homes and flags and other symbols that resonated with them.
Some pictures showed bombs approaching buildings.
Estes and Vahantavy said they came up with the idea after taking a public humanities class together and reading “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a book of poems and drawings from children in concentration camps.
“I was curious about what drawings from the region would look like today and I presented this idea to the class,” Estes said.
What started as a class assignment turned into a project of nine Brown University students working to collect more drawings. Estes said he and Vahantavy have personal connections to the issue.
“Once we saw the images themselves, we knew we had to share them,” Estes said. “Since then, we’ve been working to organize physical exhibitions and we also have a full digital catalog available on our website.”
Taha Vahanvaty, a senior in the School of Public Affairs and PCD grant coordinator, is Taher Vahanvaty’s cousin and said he helped bring the project to the University with a PCD grant.
Taha Vahanvaty also said he got involved with the project because he knew it would be “very powerful.”
“You don’t necessarily see the identities of the children, the nationalities of the child, you can just see the drawings,” Taha Vahanvaty said. “It’s a very powerful way to deliver empathy in which other mechanisms are currently failing.”
Taher Vahanvaty said the exhibits were not designed to propose solutions to the issue, but instead showcase children’s experiences in the different regions. He added that the drawings purposefully do not list the children’s names or which community they are from.
“That’s a very intentional choice, so that when people first walk up to a drawing, if it makes them feel some visceral reaction or emotional response, you are almost forced to sit with that for a moment,” Taher Vahanvaty said.
This article was edited by Natalie Hausmann, Payton Anderson and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman and Mattie Lupo. Fact-checking done by Luca Palma Poth.
