Creative Peace
We experiment with and advance creative practices to build peace, as both a means and an end. As a means, they open spaces for self-expression, dialogue, and collective work, where people can come together, surface memory, and foster healing. As an end, they result in cultural products and documented processes; films, podcasts, performances, exhibitions, that embody peace and offer communities tangible mediums to engage with, reflect on, and organise around. The value lies not only in what is produced, but in the human-centered, participatory journey through which these works come to life.
This includes supporting in the following areas:
Artistic Creation
Creative Incubation
Creative Processes
Areas of work in Creative Peace
Artistic Creation
We create and co-create artistic products, merging art, media, and peacebuilding. Whether its radio game shows to talk about employment, documentaries of our annual conferences, or a co-created community radio, these artistic products document and share peace initiatives.
Watch the Build Peace documentaries above.
Watch a short documentary on a radio game show in Turkana West, Kenya
Read about Dancing with Peace, an artist residency.
Read about an Open Art Space in Damascus.
Read an external evaluation of our peace innovation programs, many of which involved incubation of creative methodologies.
Creative Incubation
We create space for artists to experiment to create innovative products/processes to build peace. We have mentored social media influencers to produce creative content that challenges harmful narratives; we have worked through artist residencies, offering space, support, and connections for under-represented creatives to explore peacebuilding.
Creative Processes
We work with partners to design and deliver creative processes – open art spaces, oral history projects, participatory video, and theatre – where Build Up acts as a convener, guide, and amplifier rather than sole producer. Our processes are designed to be transformative experiences of empowerment and of peace for participants, regardless of the impact the story or “product” might have down the line.
Watch this film made collaborative by Sudanese and South Sudanese women that resulted in drilling of additional wells along the border areas.
Explore an online archive of personal stories of crisis in Switzerland.
Read about open art spaces in the Central African Republic to explore challenges to DDR.
Project outcome & statistics
The Democratisation and Inclusive Politics focus on programmes that provide support to political and democratic processes at the intersection of peacebuilding and democratisation. This includes support to electoral processes, good governance, and accompaniment of democratic institutions and movements. The pod is currently focused on work in the Somali region, including Somaliland, Puntland, and at the Federal Somalia level, as well as work in Sudan.
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