Picturing Peace: Photography, Conflict Transformation, and Peacebuilding

Picturing Peace: Photography, Conflict Transformation, and Peacebuilding

Edited by Tom Allbeson, Pippa Oldfield & Jolyon Mitchell

"Can images help us imagine peace in a world plagued by war?  Through a series of masterful essays, co-authored by leading scholars and award-winning photographers, this ground-breaking volume reminds us that making peace is also about visualising peace, about seeing how peace might work in pictures - a work just as arduous as it is noble and just as fragile as it is necessary. A must-read!"  - Lilie Chouliaraki, Chair in Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Join us and CVAC colleagues from across our Faculties at Durham, at ST John's College, for discussions with Dr Pippa Oldfield, exploring learnings and stories from this remarkable new book!  

'Picturing Peace' provides critical new insights into the relationship between photography and peace by considering how making and sharing images can contribute to conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

Key Features and Highlights

• Key case studies interrogate the relationship between peace and photography, via individual photographers, commercial organizations, state institutions, and NGOs
• Broad historical and geographic scope, covering: First World War peace activism, Vietnam and Cold War anti-nuclear protests, and contemporary photography from post-conflict societies - Iraq, Rwanda, Colombia, Bangladesh, and the Balkans
• Engages with urgent debates surrounding conflict, human rights activism and protest, especially concerning current protest movements in the Middle East Considers the politics of representation, methods of participatory photography, and decolonising the photographic gaze - suitable for both
  practice-based photography courses as well as theoretical modules

More info in our Picturing Peace flyer

All welcome.  

Dr Pippa Oldfield is a photography curator and historian. She is Senior Lecturer in Photography at Teesside University, UK, and former Head of Programme at Impressions Gallery, Bradford. She is the author of 'Photography and War' (Reaktion, 2019) and has curated numerous exhibitions on the topic of conflict and its aftermath including 'Bringing the War Home: Photographic Responses to Recent Conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan' and 'No Man’s Land: Women’s Photographic Viewpoints on the First World War'.

Book Launch: 'Photography, Conflict Transformation, and Peacebuilding' (Bloomsbury, 2025)

• St John’s College, 3 South Bailey, Durham, DH1 3RJ
• 17:00 seminar and discussions; 18:00 drinks reception 

All welcome.  We look forward to you joining us on 5th March!

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