I have recently hosted two workshops from my Scottish studio for staff from the Berghof Foundation in Berlin. This is a wonderful NGO that works in peace-building and conflict transformation, and today they celebrate their 50th birthday. I find their mission statement profoundly moving and important:
While conflict is inevitable, violence is not. We bring people in conflict together, creating space for conflict transformation.
I'm delighted to be working with the Berghof Foundation as artist-in-residence as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations. There will be lots more to share with you about this partnership when I travel to Berlin to spend time in their office, hopefully in the spring of 2022. Meanwhile, Zoom allows online studio visits and we have begun exploring connections between art and conflict transformation.
This week we looked at the work of Issam Kourbaaj.
Dark water, Burning world Issam Kourbaaj
And before that at the Throne of Weapons in the British Museum.
Throne of Weapons, Cristovao Canhavato (Kester)
My own painting practice connects with conflict transformation through its underlying values and themes - “attending to the beauty in our damaged world and to our brave attempts at building relationships across misunderstanding and conflict”.
Farming again, acrylic on card, Lynne Cameron, 2014.
This painting came out of visiting conflict transformation practitioners in northern Kenya several years back. We stopped to notice a new fence in the landscape and heard how important it was as a symbol of decreased violence in the area. People who had been too scared to farm had returned to their land and started digging to plant crops.
I am excited by the two-way interaction of the Berghof residency and to seeing how this influences new work.