This Shelf of Sorrow-s Project is my personal attempt to describe the conflict between empathy and toxic ideology. We are very rarely taught that much of our civilization is actually based on cruelty to others. Our cultural identity is often based on how well we rationalize that cruelty for future generations.  This project is an attempt to explore the idea that these events might not have happened if humanity was  based on empathy and not just a cruel race for survival between different people, business interests, states, ideologies, religions.
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Every wall shelf in this collection is based on a different location where some horrendous conflict happened. Some places and events in this collection might be historically or geographically connected to each other. However, the only genuine connection is that I have a personal emotional attachment with each of them: through my life, my travels, my friends and family. That’s why I have not included many other places and events, such as Rwanda or the Gulags of Siberia.  I have not tried to rank these places from the stand point of perceived historical importance, number of people that died there or tried to quantify amount of human pain generated.  Each shelf has its own story and each shelf is an opportunity to learn and ask ourselves why.

Tuol Sleng

Gaza

June 2025: The notes on Gaza have been written in 2019 when I initially launched SOS project. I haven’t updated original notes during horrible crimes that have been happening since October 2023, just to show that this tragedy is long time unfolding story.

Srebrenica 
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​Bratunac

Auschwitz

Jasenovac 

​Rakhine State

Marias

Shelf of Sorrow - Empathy Vs ISM
​​Working on this project was very depressing. Starting with a quote from Professor Freddy Perlman: “Genocide, the rationally calculated extermination of human populations designated as legitimate prey, has not been an aberration in an otherwise peaceful march of progress. Genocide has been prerequisite of that progress.”
 
If Dr. Perlman statement is a diagnosis, perhaps John Lennon’s poetry is the prescription to free us from this culture of genocide:" Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace, you You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one. Images made by Aleksandar Saša Babić, shelf designed by Steve Kennedy.

Quotes by Freddy Perlman:
Genocide, the rationally calculated extermination of human populations designated as legitimate prey, has not been an aberration in an otherwise peaceful march of progress. Genocide has been prerequisite of that progress.
 
                                                                          XXX
 
There is no earthly reason for the descendants of the persecuted to remain persecuted when nationalism offers them the prospect of becoming prosecutors.
 
                                                                          XXX
 
Every oppressed population can become a nation, a photographic negative of the oppressor nation.
 
                                                                          XXX
 
The idea that an understanding of the genocide, that a memory of the holocaust, can only lead people to want to dismantle the system, is erroneous. The continuing appeal of nationalism suggests that the opposite is truer, namely that an understanding of genocide has led people to mobilize genocidal armies, that the memory of holocaust has led people to perpetrate holocaust.
 
                                                                          XXX
 
After the 2nd world war, many reasonable people would speak of the aims of the Axis as irrational and of Hitler as a lunatic. Yet the reasonable people would consider men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson sane and rational, even though these men envisioned and began to enact the conquest of a vast continent, the deportation and extermination of the continent’s population, at a time when such a project was much less feasible than the project of the Axis. It is true that the technologies as well as physical, chemical, biological and social science applied by Washington and Jefferson were quite different from those applied by the National Socialists. But if knowledge is power, if it was rational for the earlier pioneers to maim and kill with gunpowder in the age of horse-drawn carriages, why was it irrational for National Socialists to maim and kill with high explosives, gas and chemical agents in the age of rockets, submarines and “freeways”?
 
                                                                           XXX
 
Many reasonable people seem to equate lunacy with failure. This would not be the first time. Many called Napoleon a lunatic when he was in prison in exile, but when Napoleon re-emerged as the Emperor, the same people spoke of him with respect, even reverence. Incarceration and exile are not only regarded as remedies for lunacy, but also its symptoms. Failure is foolishness. 

Quotes about Empathy:

Human morality is unthinkable without empathy. Frans de Waal
 
Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.' Neil deGrasse Tyson
 
 
For me, empathy is an existential question - it's about the survival of the human race. That is, it's imperative for us to overcome the challenges we face. Daniel Lubetzky

Imagine:
 
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
John Lennon