Artist Sends Call for Peace to President Obama

Online, January 20, 2010 (Newswire.com) - In February of 2009, ten months before Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, artist Eugenio Costa of Project Fashion World Peace designed a work of art for the newly inaugurated president. The work entitled "No Violence," approximately 7 feet wide and 6 feet high, is a visual representation of Costa's commitment to promoting peace, reducing pollution and seeking nonviolent solutions to conflict in the world. Costa felt, as the Nobel Committee wrote, "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

As a youth Eugenio Costa watched his father save the lives of two children, an act for which his father was awarded a medal from the Carnegie Hero Foundation; he is himself a possessor of a letter from the Cabinet Chief of French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicating that office's awareness of Costa's efforts to promote world peace. Inspired by events such as Miami's "Bullets for Peace," Seattle's "Peace, Love and Fashion" and the African "Fashion for Peace" show, Mr. Costa created Project Fashion World Peace, taking human rights awareness from the runway to the streets with a line of everyday clothing that allows people to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Describing his intentions in contacting President Obama, Mr. Costa writes:
"I was moved on the day of his swearing in, and at the same time I understood that his words were my words. But sometimes words are not enough. Therefore I decided to send him one of my works, which better expresses what is closest to our hearts: the Environment, Peace, and Nonviolence."

The artwork was accompanied by a letter to the president, in which Mr. Costa writes, "The work that I am sending you represents three fundamental principles for a better future, so that all may have life through the efforts of everyone."

The canvas traveled from Italy to California, where it was addressed to the White House and retrieved from FedEx by an agent of the President. Costa is in possession of the only duplicate.

Now that President Obama has decided to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, has failed to negotiate a viable environmental treaty in Copenhagen, declined to sign the Cartegna Anti Landmine Treaty, and seems unlikely to meet his Jan. 22, 2010 deadline for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison, Mr. Costa has expressed concern about Obama's commitment to change. His current message to the president:
"You possess a magnetic force, and it is that which we need to give vitality and energy to new projects; to be free to breathe life into the hope for a better future... The power of ideas is manifested in acts; without these there is nothing to hold on to."

Eugenio Costa and Project Fashion World Peace can be contacted through the website, eugscommunications.com.