Images, drafts, concepts and foremost the deliberation of peace as central public concerns have been greatly neglected and marginally displaced without discussion - and under social and political, regional and global conditions this is broadly disquieting.

Design2context (Institute of design research) is currently pursuing the leading hypothesis that in the powerful presence of images there is a loss in the ability to imagine peace, leading to increase a disquieting space. In opposition, we have set up a research project in  search for visual representations of peace. We are gathering these representations in a variety of historical, cultural and political  
contexts, and bringing them together in research constellations. These constellations allow for a renewed ability in imagining peace and should contribute to forthcoming debates and controversies that encompass a vital presence of peace in political, civil and everyday life contexts.

The center of this research project is the forthcoming publication  "?Imagine peace - a visual encyclopaedia" to be published in autumn of 2009 with Lars Muller Publishers, and edited by Ruedi Baur, Stefanie- Vera Kockot and Clemens Bellut. With the participation of Sébastien Thiery, Matthias Görlich, Maria Fahringer, Monya Pletsch, Maru Martinez, Megan Hall and others, we will gather in a encyclopedic way historical and contemporary, european and non-european images, signs,  
symbols, posters, etc. collected as leading lemmata - accompanied by commentary, research based and supplementary discursive contributions.  
Well-known authors from the field of science, politics, society, art, design and peace organizations have manifested their interest to contribute these texts.

To accompany the visual encyclopaedia worldwide workshops , entitled "
Imagine peace!" , are held in places marked by situational crisis  where key participants, artists, designers, graphic artists along with active peace grassroots organizations will pursue through the exchange of experiences and continuous development, effective and active concepts of peace. An extensive search for images, symbols, signs and posters of peace form the basis of both research activities. These are currently archived as digital files and accessible through keywords in this database.

As for today, this research has generated clear diagnostics among contemporary visual representations. The split between the naive visual harmony and such, sustains a peace that is created only in the absence of war and violence. This empty space between these two realizations - an open wide abyss - and the absence of civil societal utopias, in the words of philosopher Ernst Bloch, may acquire the meaning ?concrete Utopias" in order to build controversial projects of peace against the active powers and structures of peacelessness.

Our design research continues the reflexive force that can be inherent in the images, while taking into account that peacefulness is neither achieved in the absence of discord, nor is it fulfilled in the absence of violence and war - perhaps they themselves are only symptoms of peaceless politic and practice of life.

http://peace.zhdk.ch