Gweler y ddolen we hon am wybodaeth yn Gymraeg
What happens when civilians choose unarmed action to protect themselves from violence? How empowering is nonviolence in shaping peoples’ presents and futures?
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, 11 – 28 March 2024
OPENING EVENT: 6 pm on Friday 22 March
The exhibition CREATING SAFER SPACE explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. It shows how protection is being thought of and practised by ordinary people without the use of weapons, and what transformative ways of imagining, doing, and living it enables, but also what its limits are.
With most deaths in wars sustained among civilians and a record high of over 110 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, the protection of civilians from the harms of war, violence and persecution is a pressing issue of our time. But answers are still mostly imagined as either armed protection from violence or as humanitarian assistance to protect people legally and socioeconomically. By contrast, the people featured in this exhibition show us that and how nonviolent, civilian alternatives of protection from physical violence work.
CREATING SAFER SPACE draws on unarmed civilian protection experiences from Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Thailand, where civilians are harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces and work towards alternative presents and futures. The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers, that explored how nonviolent civilian protection works. The experiences they have captured invite us to reflect on our own ideas and biases of who can protect and how.
CREATING SAFER SPACE challenges its visitors to undo commonly held beliefs about vulnerability, agency, and choices in war. It invites us to imagine possibilities for the protection of civilians differently. And it inspires us to take action and contribute to this change.
OPENING EVENT
6 pm on Friday 22 March
Join us for wine, food, music and to learn more about the exhibition. Opening remarks by:
- Prof. Angela Hatton (Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research, Knowledge Exchange and Innovation)
- Dr Patrick Finney (Head of Department, International Politics)
- Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Principal Investigator of the Creating Safer Space Research Network)
