Artists drawn together by peace

Pictures can bring peace instead of provoking conflict, say three cartoonists visiting Wairarapa as part of an international Cartooning for Peace conference.
Masterton publisher Ian Grant, one of the organisers, hosted the trio at his home yesterday, representing Australia, Japan and Singapore.
Here they share their views on cartoons, culture clashes and causing or not causing offence.
n Cathy Wilcox is a cartoonist for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.
Someone said to me on the way here, "It's very important what you do".
Cartooning can be a little bit dismissed. But here you get to meet people for whom it is a very important function of free speech.
We can learn about how other people work, and how they see their task. I go to conventions and there is almost a kind of machismo with New Zealanders and Australians, to really push the boundary, to say 'that really got them', to the point that I've thought sometimes I'm not pushing the boundary enough.
Nobody has threatened violence on me; nobody has come and dumped sand on my driveway. You can feel that you're not hard enough.
But I'm quite protective of myself and I draw out of an emotional response.
I don't want to extinguish my own soul; I respect the humanity of other people, and I'm protective of my own humanity.
n Heng Kim Song is a freelance editorial cartoonist for Lianhe Zaobao, the largest Chinese daily in Singapore.
In the West maybe some say it is a good cartoon if it annoys or provokes. They also have a misconception about Asian values and people say to me 'if you don't speak up, who will?'
People see the Beijing Olympics and all they see is the human rights, thinking of Tiananmen Square, but you need to take an objective view. To do a cartoon criticising a religion, it's ridiculous. To provoke people is very easy, but a responsible editorial cartoonist will promote greater awareness, greater debate. When I draw a cartoon, I ask myself "What do I want to say?"
If I just want to provoke people, I'm in the wrong profession.
I've even heard it said, "don't let the facts get in the way of a good cartoon".
Cartoons without facts can create a wrong impression; how much credibility does that leave the association of cartoonists?
I will do things from my perspective. I see things my own way, draw my own way.
n Norio Yamanoi is chairman of the Federation of Cartoonists Association in Japan, a moviemaker and a spokesman for charities on global economic issues.
It's good to exchange views, and to get different perceptions of world affairs. I go to three or four of these international conventions a year, and I am usually the only Asiatic there.
As a Buddhist and a polytheist or animist, I see the conflict nowadays is between Muslim, Christian, Jew ... they're all monotheistic.
It seems from our point of view that we are so far from this monotheistic thinking, and it is my duty to show our world thinking, our notion of nature, our notion of God. Sometimes I think there is a conflict between cartooning, which is a humanist activity, and religion.
The economy has always been about profit. But profit is not always material; it's about the harmony of the soul, which you can't calculate. People are looking for another type of thinking. It's a very good moment to change the economics of the world.