Our Visit to the Lennon Wall

March 8, 2015

Our first full day in Prague was a full one. Admiring the sites, people, the architecture was all so exciting and so different from our experience in the United States. We had a wonderful tour from one of the professors from CIEE! Professor Maria Homerová was so knowledgeable and quite the fast walker, she definitely kept us all on our toes!

Of all the sites however, my favorite was our last stop before dinner, the John Lennon Wall.

What is it? A wall of art a messages of peace and freedom put together by the youth of Prague after the velvet revolution in 1989. This past November, the night of the 25th anniversary of the velvet revolution, students painted over the wall in order to give the new generation the opportunity to contribute to the message. On the now white wall the write “ Wall is Over”...a play on words of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s peace campaign at the time the wall first was decorated.

My first initial reaction: "Whoa... The wall is smaller than I imagined. I can't believe people are still painting on it!" It was beautiful, and had tons of messages of peace, which was awesome to see because the messages was something that started over 25 years ago. It was so cool to see people from around the world physically contributing to the same messages.


Feeling during and after: I wonder if the Berlin Wall has the same contributions. I felt such a sense of peace and connection with all the people hustling and bustling of strangers around to write on the wall with their own messages of tolerance. It was really exciting to be there and a nice breath of fresh air with all the violence that still happens in our world today.

This is me adding my contributions to the Lennon Wall! 2015

Connection to resiliency: The way I see resilience at the John Lennon wall leads back more towards the people who have contributed to its message and keeping it alive. The people are the ones who persevere with the idea of peace and "giving it a chance" as John Lennon and Yoko Ono would say. Staying positive and living life through a time of political take over and change in government was a difficult. When people and cities have the opportunity to choose peace over war and violence it makes the idea of the people staying resilient through other points and changes in life much easier.