Can artists change how we approach politics in our society?

• by jesspaul
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Re-cap moments from the Rising Global Peace Forum 2016

Change our politics and our attitudes towards conflict. Finish violence towards women. Educate girls around the world so they can participate in rebuilding society. These were key themes in the Rising Global Peace Forum of 2016. So our question is, nearly 3 year on, why are these the same challanges we face today, why has violence towards women increased, why has our attitude to conflict turned to hate and why are our politicions behaving like tyrants?

We want to hear your voice and your comments as to what you think the answer is? We will then visualise these comments on our social media channels to share in the challenge and start conversations for solutions.

RISING 16 – KEY THEMES THAT SHOULD BE RESOLVED TODAY

The theme of the 2016 conference was ‘The Ripple Effect’. The speeches, panel discussions, and film screenings examined how responses to conflict affect the world and was an opportunity to discuss new ways of thinking about peace in the violent world of 2016.

Topics ranged from the legacy of murdered British MP Jo Cox to the refugee crisis, from the aftermath of the US election to women in politics, and from girls’ education to faith and fear.

Speakers included President of Malawi Dr Joyce Banda; Dr Edna Adan Ismail, former First Lady of Somaliland and fierce opponent of FGM; President of Kosovo Atifete Jahjaga; US Congressman Dennis Kucinich; London-based journalist Abdul-Rehman Malik; and Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

How we were involved:

We had a team of five artists attend the event. Six murals that captured the presentations and discussions were created and displayed at the various venues. The content from the discussions was dense and powerful and audience members gathered around the murals during break times to remind themselves and reflect on what they heard.

The murals were then displayed at the end of the conference during Rising Free, the cultural event that took place in Fargo Village. Our artists created another mural with messages of peace collected from the visitors.

Our digital artist illustrated the powerful messages from the conference. Thirty digital illustrations were created and shared on social media for a live Twitter commentary during the event that reached out to external audiences in which they were retweeted numerous times.

A pre-event illustration was created to announce the winners, The White Helmuts and MP Jo Cox, of the RISING Global Peace Prize and was broadcasted during the conference.

We were proud to be part of this grear event. We will continue to support great causes such as this and use our artistic talents to communicate powerful messages and remind people that there is still a lot more work to be done.

If you have a project which you feel would benefit from our artistic support and our involvement could help promote the cause or messages then please contact our team today as we are here to help make change happen.