The Concept
The project is based on the original idea of Anna Chromy to create a universal image, understandable by people of all cultures and all religions, which expresses her believe that it's the love we have given to our next, our good deeds and our sufferings for creatures needing our help that will survive us, nothing else. The empty cloak draping the emptiness of all our desires and aspirations is the visual expression of this metaphor. It vaguely recalls the image of a woman in sorrow, a mother weeping her sons lost in armed conflicts, whatever their futile justification might have been.
The only way to replace the emptiness of this Coat is to fill it with love, with prayers for peace and understanding. Love builds peace, good must defeat evil, was the message of John Paul II, who initiated 1986 in Assisi the Prayer for Peace, uniting all religions of the world.
The choice of Assisi for this gathering, which since is repeated every year, is no accident. Francis, man of dialogue with God, universal brother of all creatures, was a shining example of Peace and Love, the franciscan salute up to our times. Francis was very demanding in his search for the ideal place for prayer and meditation in silence, and therefore suggested in the absence of a specific, consacrated place, to use a simple cloak in the shape of our body as cell in which to find the deepest dimension of the self.
It is the endavour of the Coat of Peace project to provide the youth of the world with such a Cell in which they can brotherly unite their prayers for a peaceful! future of our planet and all it's creatures, in order to be themselves more than just a thing in our materialized world, adding their love and deeds to the shiny coat.
