Activating Peace

Amelia Batchelor and myself with artworks visualising peace in the world, October 2020

This week on October 9th, the Imagine Peace Tower will be lit in Iceland for the 18th time to commemorate John Lennon’s birthday. It was an event I went to in 2019 during my first artist residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland. I had to stay overnight in Reykjavik but it meant I was able to attend the ‘Imagine Peace Forum’ the next day. I wrote about it in an earlier blogpost Peace in Our Time.

In October 2020 during the pandemic, I decided to share the spirit of that peace activation in Murwillumbah near where I live in northern New South Wales. The date coincided with my Fire and Ice exhibition, so on the night a small group of us gathered around to pour a paper world and sing songs of peace in our time.

When that paper world dried we hung it on the wall in the M-Arts precinct, a symbol of the one world we are all a part of. Next to it were other peace symbol artworks, a reminder of the years of antiwar protests that were so much a part of the 1970s.

Now in October 2024 I remember that spirit of optimism that we could emerge from the pandemic with a greater awareness of our planetary connection. Yet here we are four years on and the world seems to have erupted into even more chaos. Activating Peace is so important, especially as war and climatic events are showing us there is only one earth and we must care for it and each other.

As I revisit the Imagine Peace website, I’m struck by the visionary conviction of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that it’s not about fighting for peace, but surrendering to peace. In April 1973 they held a press conference in New York and waved their Nutopian white flag.

“Nutopia is a country that exists in all of us. John and I created this imaginary world. Ambassadors of Nutopia – Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace and let people know to IMAGINE PEACE.” Read more about it on the Imagine Peace website.

How can I imagine peace? I have to start by embodying peace within myself. When I was thinking about todays blogpost, I thought of the new work I have been creating. Like in 2020, they are paper circles, this time blue and white cyanotypes collages.

Once again they suggest that vital search to find peace when all around is in chaos. Perhaps it is ‘blue sky’ dreaming, yet dreams can start the process of becoming reality.

On October 9th, wherever you are in the world, stop for a moment and imagine peace. To quote from the song Imagine:

“You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one” ~ John Lennon