Who is afraid of art?Participants of the ASEFUAN conference dialogue with artmaking through the Piece by Peace Collaborative Installation set up for the Opening Ceremonies

“Aren’t you crazy for playing music while they are shelling Sarajevo?

“Playing music is not crazy. Why don’t you ask those people if they are not crazy shelling Sarajevo while I sit here playing my cello”

“Aren’t you crazy for playing music while they are shelling Sarajevo?

“Playing music is not crazy. Why don’t you ask those people if they are not crazy shelling Sarajevo while I sit here playing my cello”

– Vedran Smailovic

HEAL IMAGINE TRANSFORMCreative Peacebuilding Practices

"Art is our one true global language. It knows no nation, it favors no race, and it acknowledges no class. It speaks to our need to reveal, heal, and transform. It transcends our ordinary lives and lets us imagine what is possible.” - Richard Kamler

INTENTION

1. Share My Story

2. Share Principles and Foundations about Art-Based and Peacebuilding

3. Show What is Already Being Done (Personal Experience with Peace NGOs)

4. How Artists and Peaceworkers Can Work Together

Tibetan Lungta Dreamcatcher messages and a rainbow mandala of good words for the Streetchildren Festival with the

Peacemakers Circle and Museo Pambata

My Story: Lights for PeaceResumption of Philippine Peace Talks

ART + PEACE

ART | an expressive vehicle for communication

PEACEBUILDING |

a wide range of efforts to prevent, reduce, transform, and help people recover from violence in all forms at all levels of society, and in all stages of conflict

Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding by Michael Shank and Lisa Schirch (2008)

CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION IN PEACEBUILDINGGaltung: "Creativity was the missing dimension.” {PEACE = Creativity + Non-

violence}

Lederach:

The moral imagination is the spark of the intuitive and active mind which grounds itselfon the challenges of the real world (day to day challenges of conflict and violence) is yet capable of giving birth to the imagination which conceives the non-yet existing connections in the web of relationships (breaking away from the pattern; imagining that which creates the change)

It is a creative act. The capacity to give birth to something new that in its very birthing changes our world and the way wee see things. Creativity and art makes moral reasoning possible.

Moral imagination cannot be touched, moral imagination is cultivated and it’s serendipitous appearance lies in the capacity to (1) think peripheral (2) to nurture creative learning and (3) to have flexible platforms to nurture this creativity.

CONFLICT STAGES

STAGES OF STRATEGIC ART-BASED PEACEBUILDINGMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

1. Waging Conflict Nonviolently

Artists waging nonviolent conflict can work to balance power by creating an artistic platform that is highly imaginative and provocative and demands serious attention.

Artists can raise awareness about latent local issues and conflicts (e.g. social injustice) through specific artistic activities: invisible theatre, symbolic reinterpretation, spoken word, hip-hop, documentary filmmaking, public murals, agitprop, installation art, and chants.

WAGING CONFLICT NON-VIOLENTLYSHAWLS FOR PEACE

WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY NETWORK FOR PEACERitual + Action for Basilan and Sibugay Attacks 2011

STAGES OF STRATEGIC ART-BASED PEACEBUILDINGMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

2. Reducing Violence

Efforts to reduce direct violence aim to restrain perpetrators of violence, prevent and relieve the immediate suffering of victims of violence, and create a safe space for peacebuilding activities.

Artists working to reduce direct violence can interrupt the cycle of emotional, spiritual, physical, and/or psychological violence through visual, literary, performance, and/or movement art forms.

MUSEO PAMBATA FOUNDATION + KIDS FOR PEACE FOUNDATIONArt Therapy + Installation by Various Artists 2008

REDUCING DIRECT VIOLENCETUTUBING BAKAL (STEEL DRAGONFLY)

STAGES OF STRATEGIC ART-BASED PEACEBUILDINGMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

3. Transforming Relationships

For peace to replace violence, broken relationships are re-created using an array of processes that address trauma, transform conflict, and do justice. These processes give people opportunities to create long-term, sustainable solutions to address their needs. Transformation is a key principle of all peacebuilding programs.

Artists keen on transforming relationships can use the artistic medium to heal personal and/or collective trauma, transform negative energy into positive energy, and make public demands for justice. Artistic modalities utilizable within the Transforming Relationships category can include (but not be limited to): visual arts therapy, drama therapy, movement therapy, music therapy, playback theatre, rituals, and image theatre.

TRANSFORMING RELATIONSHIPS REAFFIRMATION OF THE 492 -YEAR OLD MORO - IP PEACE PACT

MINDANAO PEOPLES’ CAUCUSRitual, Indigenous Music and Dance 2012

STAGES OF STRATEGIC ART-BASED PEACEBUILDINGMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

4. Building Capacity

Longer term peacebuilding efforts focus on cultivating existing capacities and skills in order to meet human needs. Efforts include education andArtists working to reduce direct violence can interrupt the cycle of emotional, spiritual, physical, and/or psychological violence through visual, literary, performance, and/or movement art forms.

Artists can use visual, literary, performance, and movement art as capacity-building mechanisms to build self-confidence, enable self expression, and provide training in leadership, public speaking, and creative problem solving. Art forms that potentially fall within the Building Capacity category can include (but are not limited to): forum theatre and arts education programs.

BUILDING CAPACITYENGAGING THE MORAL IMAGINATION WORKSHOPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

THE PEACEMAKERS’ CIRCLE FOUNDATIONVisual Art + Theater + Music, 2011

BUILDING CAPACITYTRANSFORMING DARKNESS INTO BEAUTY

BINHI NG KAPAYAPAAN INC. Visual Art + Music + Ritual, 2010

EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTIONMeaning Making

(LeBaron)

A process for conflict resolution "becomes a container in which people's meanings - their values, deep beliefs, convictions, and passions - become important components of new, shared stories."

Conflicts that matter always involve meaning-making. In dialogue, we share the sense we have made.. And because we are connected "in multiple webs of relationship and meaning," connected ways of knowing "give us a wise range of tools for navigating these relationships, drawing on our capacity for making meaning."

Peace Pole Mandala for the Interfaith youth of Lanao del Norte with the United Religions Initiative South East Asia and the Pacific

EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION

Intermodality (Knill)

Art practices engage different sensory capacities and helps us understand and conceptualize the body as a multi-faceted perceptual, expressive and and relational center.

The youth of Tala Caloocan tying Malongs together during a closing walk for the Human Rights Day as part of the Mindanao Week of

Peace Ceremonies in Manila

EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION

Decentering (Knill)

By "decentering" we name the move away from the restricted experience posed by conflict and crisis. Decentering is a move into the opening of the surprising-unpredictable-unexpected, provided by the artistic experience within the logic of imagination. A centering follows the decentering, guided by the facilitator, who relates the two in an effort to find ease.

A Mandala of South and South East Asian calligraphy of words as part of a Peace Writ Large activity for the Training of Trainers on Interfaith

Education for Children in Sri Lanka with the Global Network of Religions for Children

EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION

Poesis (Levine)

Poesis is about practical hope. It is precisely because we are capable of imagining our world in multiple ways that we feel hopeless when we are blocked from doing so. Help restore people’s capacity for poesis. art-making restores individuals' and groups' capacities for action and agency, giving up control in order to achieve mastery.

Life Skills Mandala for children of former rebel soldiers (location confidential)

EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTIONThird Space (Various)

Art creates a third space wherein two parties in dialogue can disarm or disengage from the conflict matters and speak a common language based on common need or common story.

Children make the call to end armed conflict on the World Day of Prayer and Action for Children in Taguig City

WORKING TOGETHERVerbal + Non Verbal Communication

Arts-based peacebuilding recognizes the limitations of verbal communication and suggests practitioners use the arts to elicit information and convey meaning difficult to communicate. Art forms such as music, dance, theatre, or the visual arts use symbolic references to nonverbally ommunicate something about the real world that is missed when communicating through the direct logic of words. Art can explain emotions, ideas, or feelings that words alone cannot. (Schirch)

A creative workshop on interfaith education for children about the layers of identities for the Global Network of Religions for Children in Sri Lanka

WORKING TOGETHERRational + Relational Peacebuilding

Art can create a frame around an issue or relationship that offers new perspectives and the possibility of transformation; acting like a prism that allows us to view the world through a new lens. Rather than solving problems by negotiating the best solution, the arts can offer a new frame for interpreting the problem and the world around it. The artistic experience maintains the potential to transform people’s worldviews, identities, and relationships. ( Schirch)

The Philippine President looks on during a children-led ritual for the resumption of the

Peace Talks between the government and the National Democratic Front and the Moro Islamic

Liberation Front

1. Have a clear idea of the intention or goal in using the arts.

What is the problem, transition, relationship, emotion, or need that requires this artistic process? What are the hopes, visions, or goals of the artistic process? What is the artist’s peacebuilding methodology trying to communicate? Who is the audience for the project? How will success be evaluated

2. Consider how the intended message is encoded into the chosen art form.

This is where talent and artistry become essential. It takes insight to choose the right symbolic forms that will communicate a message in a way that allows the receiver of the message to take responsibility and ownership for its interpretation.

WORKING TOGETHERMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

3. Evaluate the impact of the encoded message on the audience.

What effect did the approach have on the audience? What message did they receive? What changes or transformations occurred because of the art project? What worked well? What needs to be changed?

Practitioners will want to be able to answer these questions and articulate their goals for transformation and their reason for choosing the medium or frame for their transformative message

WORKING TOGETHERMICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)

A clip from Meme na Mindanao, a lullaby for peace. Composed by Fr. Albert Alejo ,S.J. and performed by Maan Chua,“Art Moves Us. We are moved when we are

touched in our hearts. Our common efforts should speak in the language of the heart.” – Fr. Albert

Alejo, S.J.