On August 31st, Chilean artists targeted the German city of Berlin for a poetry bombing. The art collective Casagrande dropped more than 100,000 bookmarks with poems from a helicopter flying over the city–in both a protest against war and a plea for global compassion.
Publishing Perspectives wrote: “The event was co-organized by the Chilean artist collective Casagrande, which launched the ‘Poetry Rain’ project in 2001 as a protest against war and a gesture supporting forgiveness. Over the last nine years, the group has held similar events in four other cities that were subject to intense aerial bombings at some point in their history — Santiago de Chile (2001), Dubrovnik (2002), Guernica (2004), Warsaw (2009).”
The video embedded above depicts the Warsaw event. The group selects cities that have suffered from aerial bombings. They chose August 31st to coincide with the bicentennial of Chile’s independence, hosting a number of reading events and other festivities to commemorate the auspicious occasion.