Visual Voices

Visual Voices promotes the creation of contemporary visual art that reflects the desire for positive social change and builds new space for these ideas to be shared. Our vision is to become a global network of peacebuilding organizations, practitioners and artists that recognize the value of arts-based interventions in peacebuilding and the power of art in peace advocacy. Our mission is to strengthen the capacity of young artists (18-35 years old) from communities affected by violent conflict, while building non-commercial platforms of expression for them to share their voice and advocate for peace through contemporary visual art. In doing so, we aim to combine traditional arts-based peacebuilding activities with substantive peace advocacy campaigns. For this reason, we define ourselves as working at the intersection between strategic social art and peacebuilding. We believe that our primary target group, youth artists from communities affected by violent conflict, have incredible potential to promote positive social change. By positively addressing their challenges and lived experiences of conflict within their art, artists stimulate dialogue and peace-oriented social narratives. Reaching new audiences, Visual Voices supports young artists to share their work through conferences, presentations, campaigns and exhibitions. It is in these visual voices that we see the beginning of global narratives for peace