As well as examining how other people visualise peace in different contexts, our research team has thought hard about our own habits of thought and visualisation. We have discussed where our individual and shared ideas of peace come from; and we have also talked about how we might want to define or represent peace to others. We discussed what a logo for our ‘visualising peace’ project might incorporate, and this artwork is my attempt to pool different ideas and set down in art the many aspects of peace which we have been researching together.
There were several inspirations for the ways I have tried to ‘visualise peace’ in this graphic. The first came from Frank Möller and his research into how we might visualise pockets of ‘everyday’ peace, even in times of conflict. Möller’s particular focus is photography. As he acknowledges, there is no well-established tradition of ‘peace photography’ as there is of ‘war photography’. However, he argues that if we are open to reframing some images of conflict and its aftermath as images of ‘pockets of peace’, we can better understand how peace and conflict often co-exist with each other (Möller, Peace Photography, 2019). For Möller, this is a vital step in wider peace-building processes: the more examples of ‘everyday’ peace we notice, the more momentum these ‘pockets of peace’ will have. This is the opposite of idealising peace. The harsh realities of a conflict or post-conflict zone are that ‘pockets of peace’ can be brief, unobtrusive, and framed by the debris of war; but paying attention to them helps to make deeper, more sustainable peace a more likely reality.[1]
Some images of ‘everyday’ peace include military equipment abandoned in post-conflict zones. In the image below, for example, a tank has been abandoned and subsequently taken over by nature. I wanted to incorporate this idea of abandoned instruments of war, which help us to visualise the ugly realities of peace in a post-war landscape, so I included two guns in my design – a modern assault rifle and a traditional single-shot rifle – with flowers growing from their barrels. The flowers show that the firearms can no longer be used for war as they have been taken over by nature. However, the guns serve as a reminder that peace often comes post-war. We may celebrate when peace flourishes, but we should not forget that it can often have violent roots.
The flower-sprouting guns also represent the ‘flower power’ movement of 1960’s America, where war protestors placed flowers on soldiers’ guns. This transforms the guns from being tools of conflict into something natural, peaceful and beautiful, as they act as vessels for the flowers to grow.
I have inverted the colours of some of the flowers to represent different aspects of peace. For example, I have used white to represent pure and peaceful intentions, but I have included streaks of red to show the bloodshed that often occurs before peace and stability are established. The black also signifies the darker sides to peace and memories of war which we often fail to see. The bright flowers catch the viewers’ attention whilst the black stems are understated and can easily be over-looked. This is to illustrate how the public can hyper-focus on specific aspects of peace and its success, often overlooking the reality of day-to-day peace-making and the sacrifices required for getting there. The withered nature of the stems further illustrates the fragility of peace: without healthy stems and maintenance the flowers of peace will die.
On the far right of the logo, the flowers are more colourful, demonstrating that beautiful things can happen when peace flourishes. You might notice a bee on one of the flowers. This is a reference to another item in our museum: the story told in Emily Mayhew’s book The Four Horsemen and the Hope of a New Age about the city of Mosul’s post-conflict recovery. As she explains, a year after the end of ISIS’s bloody occupation of Mosul the local bees and their beekeepers produced record amounts of honey: ‘hope in a jar’, as she puts it. Bees (like flowers) can flourish in the wild, but they benefit from good care and attention; and they are social creatures, working collectively. Bees remind us of the hard work and co-operation that goes into producing something sweet. They can teach us important lessons about peace.
The green roots represent the ‘grassroots’ peacebuilding efforts which have been critical in achieving sustainable peace (Hamidi, M., Peace Insight, 2018). However, they also look like lightning bolts which demonstrate how peace can occur and disappear rapidly – and sometimes violently. The dark blue field the graphic sits on symbolises hope and apparent horizons (think ‘sky blue’). However, I decided to use a darker blue to signal that, while there may be hope for brighter days, darkness and conflict are never far away. Finally, you might notice a white feather helping to bind one bunch of flowers together. This links to another item in our museum about conscientious objectors during WWI. The white feather evokes pacifist movements, but it also reminds us of the stigma which some pacifists have faced for standing against war. In Britain, men who did not sign up to the war prior to the introduction of conscription in 1916 were verbally attacked by women on the street and sometimes had white feathers pinned onto them. Although, from the perpetrator’s perspective, the feather was representative of cowardice, for the conscientious objectors it sometimes became a symbol of pride. The inclusion of a white feather reminds us of the importance of positionality when considering peace and peace-making, as the differing symbolism highlights how personal interpretation is key. Finally, the white feather raises thoughts of historical interpretations of peace, and how this has changed throughout the eras.
Overall, then, this graphic visualises peace through imagery of hope, nature, beauty and growth. But it also evokes the fragility of peace, through references to the violence that often precedes its and to threats that persist when peace starts to flourish.
What do you think?
- How would YOU visualise peace?
- What colours do you particularly associate with peace?
- What imagery would you use, and why?
- Does this graphic say ‘peace’ to you? If so, in what way? If not, why not?
If you enjoyed this item in our museum…
You might also enjoy ‘Peace Banner‘, ‘Peace through Movement‘, ‘Jean Gritsfeldt, Berlin Fashion Week‘, ‘Valentino’s Peace Dress‘, ‘Visualising Peace after Forced Displacement‘ and ‘Fractured Peace‘.
Harris Siderfin, April 2022
[1] You can find more publications by Frank Möller at his ‘Image & Peace’ website.