1. 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

2. HEAL IMAGINE TRANSFORM
Creative Peacebuilding Practices
“Aren’t you crazy for playing music while they
are shelling Sarajevo?
“Aren’t you crazy for playing music while they are shelling
Sarajevo?
“Playing music is not crazy. Why don’t you ask
“Playing music is not crazy. Why don’t you ask those people if
those people if they are not crazy shelling
they are not crazy shelling Sarajevo while I sit here playing my
cello” Sarajevo while I sit here playing my cello”
– Vedran Smailovic

3. "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

4. 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

5. My Story: Lights for Peace
Resumption of Philippine Peace Talks

6. 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)

7. CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION
IN PEACEBUILDING
Galtung: "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.

8. CONFLICT STAGES

10. STAGES OF STRATEGIC
ART-BASED PEACEBUILDING
MICHAEL 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.

11. WAGING CONFLICT NON-
VIOLENTLY
SHAWLS FOR PEACE
WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY NETWORK FOR
PEACE
Ritual + Action for Basilan and Sibugay
Attacks 2011

12. STAGES OF STRATEGIC
ART-BASED PEACEBUILDING
MICHAEL 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.

13. REDUCING DIRECT VIOLENCE
TUTUBING BAKAL
(STEEL DRAGONFLY)
MUSEO PAMBATA FOUNDATION +
KIDS FOR PEACE FOUNDATION
Art Therapy + Installation by Various Artists
2008

14. STAGES OF STRATEGIC
ART-BASED PEACEBUILDING
MICHAEL 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.

15. TRANSFORMING
RELATIONSHIPS REAFFIRMATION
OF THE 492 -YEAR OLD MORO - IP PEACE
PACT
MINDANAO PEOPLES’ CAUCUS
Ritual, Indigenous Music and Dance 2012

16. STAGES OF STRATEGIC
ART-BASED PEACEBUILDING
MICHAEL 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.

17. BUILDING CAPACITY
ENGAGING THE MORAL IMAGINATION
WORKSHOPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
THE PEACEMAKERS’ CIRCLE FOUNDATION
Visual Art + Theater + Music, 2011

18. BUILDING CAPACITY
TRANSFORMING DARKNESS
INTO BEAUTY
BINHI NG KAPAYAPAAN INC.
Visual Art + Music + Ritual, 2010

19. EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION
Meaning 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

20. EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION
Intermodalit
y (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

21. 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

22. 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
Life Skills Mandala for children of former rebel soldiers (location confidential)
achieve mastery.

23. EXPRESSIVE ARTS IN ACTION
Third 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

24. WORKING TOGETHER
Verbal + 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

25. WORKING TOGETHER
Rational + 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

26. WORKING TOGETHER
MICHAEL SHANK AND LISA SCHIRCH (2008)
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.

27. WORKING TOGETHER
MICHAEL 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

28. 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.