Symphony of Peace Prayers (SOPP) Amsterdam

My name is Simsa Cho. I work with glass for my creation. Parallel to my art activities, I organize the international peace ceremony called Symphony of Peace Prayers (SOPP) in Amsterdam with Pastor Andreas Wöhle from the Lutheran tradition. This year was our 4th year. SOPP is founded by Byakko (Japanese religion), which I have been practicing over 15 years, and I am a Byakko representative of the Netherlands.

First SOPP was held in 2005 in Japan at our Fuji sanctuary.
After 8 years, this February SOPP was held at the UN building in New York. And we got a very positive feedback. They said that it gave a free feeling which is not bound to religion, while engaged in the faith. Since that, SOPP will be much more recognizable as an international Peace event.

Peace is one faith, but there are so many ways to approach it.
These many approaches do not accept each other. Strangely enough, even when so many people are praying for Peace, Peace will not manifest in this world. What SOPP does is bringing different approaches (religion, music, art, etc.) together and experiencing them with all of us and seeking a possibility to accept each other. And create ourselves a place of “Peace”. I only can talk and think from my experiences. If Peace doesn’t exist, we should make it. Even on a small scale or a short moment.
And get some experiences. (It is the same attitude I take in my own art creation. My peace activity and my art creativity are synergistically related.)
This year we had programs for religion: Japanese Shinto, Buddhism, Lutheran tradition (protestant), Byakko, World Peace dance and for the first time we had a Jewish participant. Other disciplines: Japanese Choir, Poetry leading and Japanese modern kimono exhibition & kituke (see: http://soppamsterdam.blogspot.nl/). We also did a flag ceremony using 197 national flags to send out a peace prayer to each country.

Every year I invite an artist who represents the soul of SOPP. I very much enjoy curating the exhibition. This year we invited Japanese kimono artist Mamechiyo. She loves to wear a kimono herself. And that her love actually creates a barrier-free and new style of kimono. Because she wants to wear a kimono herself, naturally “Comfort for Daily use” is also her big issue. Her work looks hype, on top of it stay with a reality of comfort. Simply she loves it, she searches a way, bringing the kimono closer to her contemporary daily life, that struck me as how we can create “Peace in ourselves” and even radiate it.
Her work tells me a way of down to earth in high spirit. That is why I chose her work for this year.
Previously we got too many programs and I was too busy running programs and had hardly any time to say “Thank you” to people who were leaving halfway of the event. Therefore this year we chose to have fewer programs and we wanted to absorb each event better and have more time in between. For the first time I could talk to people directly and receive a good and positive vibration from them. It gave me real contact to who were there and even helped me carry on with more fresh energy. Be less tense and more natural.

World Peace is a big subject, however it all starts from the individual. It is important to receive individual feedback, each person has a face of “peace”; each face gave us input to world Peace. SOPP, let us see those faces and unite them.
Each program fills us with different types of contentment in our hearts, and there is no push from anybody. Through each program (prayer) we are getting more bliss.
This time we experienced that SOPP became much closer to our lives.
Two times a year I organize a peace event like this.
The process and the execution of the events give me a lot of creativity, which affects my Artwork. It lets me think what art could do to our future.
www.simsacho.com
www.virtualshoemuseum.com/cho-simsa

Translation: Ingrid Bongers