Conflict Transformation Through Culture - Peace-Building and the Arts

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Apr 01, 2014
by Alex Jackson
Conflict Transformation Through Culture - Peace-Building and the Arts

Cultural impact session hopes to give credence to the idea that the arts can foster peace and reconciliation amongst war torn communities

The Armoured Peace Dove graffiti, attributed to Banksy, on a wall in Bethlehem. Photo by eddiedangerous on flickr.

“Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war,” or so believed Pablo Picasso. Perhaps it is telling then that no European artist has risen to the same international prominence as the Spaniard, following more than 60 years without armed conflict in Western Europe.

But there is much to be said for the role of culture and its impact upon the art of warfare. Art draws inspiration from the world around it and reflects on cultural, political and social moments to pass comment and critique. It is important then that this dialogue is not isolated, but that the artwork, be it in film, music, painting, literature or beyond, feeds back into the society and creates ripple effects, galvanizing change, instigating movements and rousing protests. In a multimedia age, there has been a proliferation of materials that aim to highlight social problems and what we are able to learn from these mistakes.

Consider important films such as ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, which focused on espionage, conspiracy, assassins in a perfect anecdote to the Cold War; ‘Apocalypse Now’ which exposed the blood-chilling horror of Vietnam in excruciating and surreal detail by envisaging a self-destructive world inhabited by troubled and lost men; and ‘Paths of Glory’, reminding us of the difficult and near impossible decisions we must make not just to save ourselves but our wider social and cultural spheres, and a harsh indictment of the gap between leadership and soldier.

Novels – including ‘La Peste’, a social commentary on Nazi occupation and being left stranded amidst this ‘infestation’; ‘1984’ which rightly prophesized the continual surveillance and suspicion that has come to tinge 21st century lives well after the Cold War; ‘Catch 22’, a stark reminder that the definition of sanity, particularly for those that have suffered at the hands of their political or social positions, is extremely flexible – have all become synonymous with the lingering threat of war and an almost inherent mistrust of different social structures.

Such examples of art have gone on to influence millions of people around the world, and are just a snapshot of 20th Century reflections on a world that has been twice plunged into devastating World Wars, only to be further divided and threatened both physically and ideologically in the latter half of the century. If there were ever a power that can unite different continents it's the arts; the unilateral appeal of a true work of art can make a person stop, take stock and reflect on social progression.

Salzburg Global Seminar is of course the perfect location to breach this issue of promoting peace through alternative means. Not only has Salzburg Global Seminar long sought to foster better international relations, not only economically and politically, but also culturally, following decades of destructive war, having been formed in 1947 to develop as a “Marshall Plan of the Mind”, but its home at Schloss Leopoldskron, in rooted in both art and conflict. Having been built by an Archbishop who became most well known for his expulsion of 20,000 Protestants from Salzburg, the palace was later bought by theater impresario Max Reinhardt, who established Schloss Leopoldskron as a cultural hub before he, as a Jew, was forced to flee the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. During the war, the Schloss was occupied by the local Nazi party and was damaged when a bomb landed in the neighboring lake. The scars of shrapnel can still be seen in the Chinese Room.  

At the session, Conflict Transformation through Culture: Peace-Building and the Arts, hosted from April 6 to 10 at Schloss Leopoldskron, participants will be invited to consider the role of cultural institutions, from museums and art galleries to film studios, can play in post-conflict reconciliation and forgiveness. By uniting important players from NGOs, the arts, the media, and cultural hubs, it is hoped that the session, sponsored by the Edward T. Cone Foundation and the Robert Bosch Foundation, will foster a new attitude towards the way art presents itself as a catalyst for social impact and social change.

Participants will reflect on inspirational examples of art that have helped create social change and peace, and will consider whether the lessons presented in these cases can be improved upon and put into practice in wider contexts. Often, we find that the element of empathy and honest humanity are key factors in introducing a space for dialogue and debate on wide ranging issues, to find mutual grounds and common understanding. Diplomacy is something advocated at large in these works. By depicting repressed groups, those under threat of war, the greed of humanity, the staggering scale of injustice, those who interact with art are often prompted to find alternative diplomatic solutions to these problems.

The aim of the session is to develop and implement up to five “Building Peace Through Arts” pilot projects in critical conflict-ridden regions around the world over the next five years. It is hoped that these art forms will not only highlight methods by which aggression and hostility can give way to forgiveness and reconciliation, but will also be able to tackle root causes of divisions and heal the traumas of conflict ridden and culturally bankrupt societies.

It may be said that every true artist is at war with the world; their work is at war with the cultural moment in which it finds itself, and has to defend itself against criticism, rebuke, mockery. In generating the debate, the lessons of art and war are intertwined, and art stands as a constant reminder of the lessons of the past and the direction of the future.