Creativity for Peace Festival: Creative Methodologies for Unearthing Hidden War Stories

Creativity for Peace Festival: Creative Methodologies for Unearthing Hidden War Stories

The Peace Festival project (PF) identified outstanding groups and initiatives that amplify the voices of marginalized peoples challenging official histories in Peru and Colombia. It facilitated the gathering of peace activists from these groups, to discuss and produce art about the ways they use creative methodologies to tell stories about conflict and violence, their methodological challenges and possibilities, and the alternative narratives that subvert established accounts. Such creative spaces for dialogue and reflection contribute to inclusive democracy and sustainable peace.

In the follow-up Creativity for Peace Festival, we expand the creative spaces across academia and activist communities, building on three insights from the PF for initiatives across academic disciplines and with community based organisations: 1) that sharing and co-producing knowledge is enhanced by the embodiment created by active engagement with emotions; 2) there is a creative force inherent in embracing participants' own goals and strategies; 3) tensions between participants around process and goals, once acknowledged, can be productive; these tensions can serve as a common act producing a collective focus on creating an affective community.

We incorporate these lessons and bring in new participants with distinct experiences of conflict and peacebuilding. Participants expressed the necessity of spaces for dialogue, exchange, and reflection to produce actionable knowledge and creative know-how that reinvigorates their practices given the complex realities in which they operate. They also require ways to connect with other actors in networks of solidarity and knowledge that create synergies. The Festival consolidates what was produced and opens new spaces for knowledge co-production and wider impact.

This project involves new participants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Guatemala to generate new pathways for collaborative engagement that widen the impact of the original project. This will further strengthen previous collaborative links, and build capacity for incorporating them into a research network for future projects.