Vandals scar posters that toured some of the world's most hate-torn locales unscathed.
By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published December 15, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - Pictures of peace that traveled unscathed through some of the world's most divided cities didn't last one day in a park near the Pier.
During the night Saturday, someone cut holes through a series of vinyl posters from an exhibition entitled "Coexistence" on display in south Straub Park. The vandals also spray-painted racial epithets under some of the 38 panels and called the works, which came to the city last week as part of a Florida Holocaust Museum exhibit, "brainwashing."
Sunday, St. Petersburg police said they had no suspects in the vandalism, which also included toppling a life-size figure from a nativity scene in the park. Authorities classified the vandalism a hate crime, said police spokesman Bill Proffitt.
"These messages were targeted," said Stephen M. Goldman, director of the Holocaust museum in St. Petersburg. "It's shocking. It's embarrassing."
The exhibit, erected Saturday, was scheduled to open Thursday. Museum officials said the opening will continue and that the posters will not be replaced. Instead, Raphie Etgar, the exhibition's curator, said he will add a message denouncing the crime.
"We won't cover it up," said Etgar, 55, who is also the director of Jerusalem's Museum of the Seam, which deals with themes of dialogue, understanding and coexistence. "Otherwise, we will just let them get away with what they did."
The 10-foot-tall posters are visions of worldwide unity and are here through January after more than two years of travels in nearly 20 cities worldwide. In one, a white hand reaches in to a sea of smiling black children. In another, a bomb is broken in two, revealing a pair of faces.
St. Petersburg is the second U.S. stop for the traveling exhibit, which has spent most of the past two years touring Europe. Etgar started the project in response to Israeli-Palestinian violence in Jerusalem, but he soon realized the message could resonate across the world.
The posters have been to Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Cape Town, South Africa, all historic examples of human division.
But before Saturday, there has never been a problem.
"People have been so receptive wherever we have gone," Etgar said. "This is not one side against another. There is no right or wrong. Everybody would benefit from the world that we envision."
Police know little about why someone vandalized the artwork. The damage was discovered late Sunday morning. The posters weren't destroyed. Some have holes the size of a basketball. Others have long, oval sections missing.
Also, the spray paint is only on the back of the posters. Three posters closest to Beach Drive weren't touched.
"I guess sleepy little St. Petersburg isn't so sleepy anymore," said Officer Bill Silva, who was first on the scene. "It's sad."
Mayor Rick Baker met with organizers Sunday evening at Straub Park and assured them the city would investigate the vandalism. He said divisions exist in all American cities, and St. Petersburg is not immune.
"This exhibit had an initial message of coexistence," Baker said. "I think it has an additional message now: We still have a ways to go and there is definitely a need for people to get that message.
"Even on the day one of the most hateful people in the world was captured, we still have people who need the message."
Last week, Etgar said he openly wondered why the exhibition even stopped in St. Petersburg when his group moved north from Miami.
He saw the water. He saw the boats.
And he said he saw "a welcoming sun."
"This place seemed a lot like heaven," Etgar said. "I thought we would be wasting our time."
