The Visual Voices AR App for digital graffiti and storytelling brings together socially engaged art and augmented reality, in a way that promotes user-generated content and powerful stories of peace advocacy. This embraces the idea that socially engaged art coming from communities affected by violent conflict and tackling conflict-related challenges are actually relevant all over the world. For the user, it is a means of reconceptualization.
A collaboration between Visual Voices, ITICA Lab, Marina Hassapopoulou, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and socially engaged artists from around the world that address challenges stemming from violent conflict.
Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival 2023. Visual Voices, represented by our Artistic Director Eleni Angastiniotou, co-curated the 2023 festival
Look out for us By Cássia Roriz (Brazil) Age Category: 18 to 25 years old
PLURAL+ 2021 Visual Voices Award for Peace Advocacy
Every year,
PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival
gives young people around the world the opportunity to express their vision and creativity through multimedia production.
Visual Voices as an official collaborating partner of
the core organizers, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations -UNAOC and the International Organization for Migration - IOM,
aims to empower youth activism through the arts and to contribute to the development of young film-makers.
Each year, Visual Voices
awards a selected video with the ‘Arts for Social Change Award'.
'Mirrored Reflections- Memories of Tampered Identities' is a group exhibition that presents the works of six Cypriot artists who reflect on the themes of nationalist media, conflict narratives, and the crisis of democracy. The group exhibition presents the artists: Nurtane Karagil, Stephanie Lemesianou, Hayal Gezer, Memo, Lenia Georgiou, and Zoe Polycarpou.
Curation: Elia Neophytou.
The exhibition is part of the Europe for Citizens' project “Art for Remembrance” that takes place in different cities across Europe and explores the sensitive theme of remembrance in creative ways, allowing local artists to showcase their work and to offer plural narratives. Click on the link to see the exhibition catalogue and for the 360 virtual tour.
Virtual tour credit: Dimitris Pieri & Naya Demetriou.
CONFERENCES Arts-based peacebuilding draws on well-established means of communication and personal reflection, while benefiting from an existing public interest in the artistic and cultural sector. The combination of which, has the potential to effectively and dramatically contribute to more peaceful societies. In practice, it is a powerful tool that brings strong emotional responses and creates space for expression, reflection and the reformulation of perspectives. Visual Voices believes that this makes arts-based initiatives a critical component to challenging conflict narratives and transitioning into peace supporting narratives. Bringing together practitioners, academics and artists, our conferences examine the power of art as a tool for conflict transformation.
