21 Sep 2012

How art and peace can work together

Artists from around the world join forces for World Peace Day with short films and experimental animation. films4peace are “both disturbing and inspiring,” curator Mark Coetzee tells Channel 4 News.

Peterson Kamwathi from Shooting People on Vimeo.

Brought together by sports brand Puma, hundreds of cultural institutions worldwide are marking World Peace Day, an international UN day of ceasefire, with the aim of making a “more peaceful and more creative world for the generations to come”.

“As a curator I am always moved by how artists show us the world. The visual metaphors they create confront us with the challenges that face us at this time,” says Mark Coatzee.

films4peace are both disturbing and inspiring, responsive to the reality of our time but they also ask us to be responsible for our actions.

“We are honoured that so many museums, galleries, schools, universities, libraries, design labs, television channels have joined us in this important initiative.”

Twenty-one artists, from Europe, China, the US and Asia, have put together 17 pieces of work.

Levi van Veluw from Shooting People on Vimeo.

“Working on this project I began to realise that imagination is where our dreams of possibility begin – hope for a better world.

“If imagination begins in the creative spheres, than artists have an important role to play in creating a collective belief that more is possible.

“More than we can conceive in simply a logical way. Artists help us to believe and imagine that the possibility of peace still exists – even though that might mean different things to each of us.”

Isaac Julien from Shooting People on Vimeo.

Hank Willis Thomas and Terence Nance from Shooting People on Vimeo.

Mark Coatzee oversees the mission of PUMAVision that uses the programmes of PUMA.Safe, PUMA.Peace and PUMA.Creative.