This post is a bit different from what you usually get from TFF. It does not indicate a trend change, just an added perspective, a bonus post: We believe that peace can be promoted in many, different ways, including art. And this poster is an invitation to you.
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I am a peace and future researcher. But many may not know my ‘second’ life as an art photographer. In the first, I have formal professional degrees and titles; in the second, I have none of that, but 75 years of experience with art. Since my parents were art collectors, artists were frequent visitors; my father ran a contemporary art gallery and helped establish an art academy.
So, literally, since I crawled around on the floor, I have seen paintings, prints, sculptures, multiples, installations, etc. I never go anywhere in the world without visiting some kind of art place, and I am a frequent visitor to the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, etc. Can’t get enough of it.
When, in 2002-2003, right before the US invasion, I did fact-finding in Iraq, I took pictures and wrote texts but – quite to my surprise – people worldwide reacted much more frequently to my pictures of people and places in Iraq than to my scholarly analyses.
The technological revolution in the art world
It was then that it dawned upon me that the world had entered the age of images and six years later I opened ObergPhotoGraphics.com with a studio gallery in our house.
The change happened mainly thanks to technical innovation: computers, pixel-filled digital images and Photoshop (about 1990), inkjet printing, smartphones, video-making, and websites and social media where they could be shared and watched.
It has had fascinating consequences, and I would argue that a) it is true that an image can sometimes tell more than a hundred words, b) that this is the most revolutionary development in all the arts in our age, c) images can connect people across our little planet, and d) everyone became a photographer.
It is estimated that today 14 billion images are uploaded daily, covering social platforms and cloud services globally! Images now speak where text once explained…
The high price paid for the switch from texts to images
One negative side of this visual turn development is that deep and long texts that I consider necessary for a true knowledge and understanding of the immense complexities of our world and times have been totally marginalised. Just look at the latest global PISA survey: Western youngsters are getting less skilful at reading. Writing and speaking well have become less important than how you look and whether you’re able to market your superficial – often black-and-white – views in some smart public relations language.
OK, I am an old professor who gained comprehensive knowledge by reading hundreds-of-pages-long books. I am grateful for that, but also feel deeply concerned about the increasing superficiality and reduction of intellectual input into society’s debate in fields I can judge, such as foreign and security policy – not to mention peace.
And peace is what I now come to.
Peace comes through dialogue, not through diplomatic silence and weapons
The new kakistocracy – governance by the least capable and good people – runs international affairs as if we could solve conflicts only by military means: No meetings, no exchanges, no negotiations, indeed no contacts – much-much different from the First Cold War where NATO and Warsaw Pact staff met, OSCE facilitated meetings, we had Western-Russian dialogue and book projects (I did a few while at Lund University up to 1989); people of culture could perform at the other side’s cultural institutions, peace movement people – like the Quakers met – more or rather less officially, at the homes on the other side. We found out that ‘they’ were human beings over there – and they found out the same about us.
In short, dialogue was normal, non-controversial. I would add that dialogue is the sine qua non of conflict resolution and peace. You have to meet with those you disagree with, fear or feel threatened by, exactly to diagnose why and move on to peace-making and possible peaceful coexistence, alternatively a civilised divorce. But it takes intellectual effort and courage – none of which, say, NATO/EU leaders are burdened with these days.
It feels banal to state this, but we have to – in these dark times when conflict and peace illiteracy increase as fast as the stockpiles of weapons (which can never solve the problems, only aggravate them). There are now even Nordic peace movements that punish people who advocate and/or practise dialogue with Russians or challenge the official NATO disinformation.
Today’s wall is much thicker and more massive than the old Berlin Wall, but only we who are a bit older can compare the two. I am utterly dismayed when I see Europe’s politicians refusing any contact with Russians and having no positive visions about anything, just running on self-righteousness: we did nothing wrong and ‘they’ are 100% responsible for the problems and must, therefore, be punished.
The same goes for the West’s attitude to China – just negative stories, no curiosity and no relevant knowledge. NATO tells us – mistakenly, but it can’t live without paranoid enemy images – that China is the real big threat in the longer-term future that arrives when NATO has won the war over Russia by its proxy Ukraine war that costs no NATO lives but hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainian young men’s lives (and will fail anyhow) for a NATO membership that, until the invasion, less than 15% of the Ukrainians wanted.
So, what can we do?
Citizens’ diplomacy means dialogue with different means.
We can do citizens’ diplomacy. We can take up what governments have largely abandoned.
We can mobilise people to create critical mass for nonviolent change. We can create visions and be for something and not just criticise and be against something — that is too easy, and politicians couldn’t care less, even in democracies.
We can link up with those on the other side through modern technologies such as Zoom – opportunities that did not exist in, say, the 1970s-2000s – it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than on-site meetings and conferences. We can do various types of projects together, we could send our children to school in each other’s countries. Etcetera… limitlessly with just a little creativity.
We can – of course – also be tourists for bridge-building, dialogue and peace. I have yet to meet a person who has been a tourist in Iran or China and has not stated afterwards that the visit was an eye-opener: such kind and hospitable people, amazing culture and arts, wonderful food, and so easy to make friends, so many speaking good English and knowing about the West – much more than the West knows about them – or whatever they may emphasise.
In short, they are human beings who, exactly like us, want to go about their lives and live in peace – and the huge majority have no problems with people-to-people contact. “We distinguish between the citizens and the strange, aggressive governments over there in the West.”
If millions do that sort of thing over time, we shall be able to undermine the hatred and self-serving dystopian thinking of the elites of the Military-Industrial-Media-
Citizens’ diplomacy would easily have a worldwide impact compared to a Western world whose governments, media, and researchers have largely abandoned intellectual and moral decency, diplomacy, and every kind of peace thinking. And indeed, coming up with better ideas and outlining more attractive visions than the West’s doomsday/militarism nonsense these days is fairly easy.
Conflict mitigation – going to conflict zones and understand the root causes
Since the early 1990s, when TFF pioneered conflict analysis, mitigation, and peace education in the conflict zones of Yugoslavia, we have practised citizens’ diplomacy in numerous places. Unlike many researchers who travel abroad mainly to attend conferences with peers at fine hotels, we sent teams into conflict and war zones to diagnose, prognose, and provide peace-building treatment.
The purpose was never just to describe the war or condemn any party; it was to understand the underlying conflicts that cause people to use violence and then address the only questions that matter: How can this violence stop, and how can we help/mitigate — with theories, ideas and accumulated experiences – to create a future for all parties living peacefully together or go through a mutually respectful divorce — in short, do as little harm as possible, like a good doctor?
Why I cherish photography and other arts as a bridge-builder
Grosso modo, science is about systematic thinking, rational-logical analysis, theories, values/ideas, and empirical data (no, I shall not discuss those characteristics here). Art may share some of those, but on most dimensions, it is about the opposite – intuition, passion, experimentation – much more values/idea — and also not necessarily tied to the empirical world. The arts are not trying to prove anything about the world — except perhaps their own role in the world.
So my two lives — or my walking on two legs — since 2009 when I opened a studio gallery, have been research and art. In theory, I could live the rest of my life doing only one of them; in reality, I cannot say farewell completely to either. (So please, can I have a 48-hour day and pass only after 100).
Admittedly, there is a l’art pour l’art element in this: I simply enjoy creating images tremendously. All art is about dialogue between the sender and the receiver, but sometimes there is special dialogue – the political dialogue – perhaps as artful documentary.
For instance, here are 6 documentary photo essays from Syria in December 2016, at the liberation of Eastern Aleppo. And here is a series from Somaliland in 2014 – seen by a quarter of a million people over the years. They haven’t changed the world, of course, but they have sparked dialogue about what happened at these conflict spots.
You will also find several photo essays from China – both the tiny ancient village of Shen’ao and the world’s largest, fastest-growing city, Chongqing, Xinjiang and the poetic West Lake on my online photographics home. The poster above is about my exhibition of images from the first two: Welcome online or ‘live.’
Among the many portfolios find other countries and places. And here is my Art and culture magazine on Substack, I invite you to subscribe. It is free forever for anyone – like TFF’s.
Some of them have drawn surprising interest in China and have been reused in different ways. That is dialogue – artful citizens’ diplomacy.
Sharing is caring, they say. And I believe such images can spark curiosity about China (and other places) and perhaps inspire people to go there themselves. It means departing from the many narrow narratives our media offer 24/7. It means seeing countries as humans and culture – not just leaders playing their games.
So, I say — see slow, see deep and enter the image. And go there, see for yourself in the picture world or the real world.
I’ve always wondered about this: People have no problem telling what they think a picture of war and other violence looks like. But ask them what a picture of peace looks like to them — silence. I believe there can be something called peace photography, but I don’t claim to know what it is or to have created it.
There is always something new to be explored, seen and understood — for those who are eager to explore the multitude of roads to a more peaceful future for us all. Images as part of citizens’ dialogue is just one such road, and — as you will see in the future — I will keep walking down it.
