From pixels to peace

Cornelia Brantner is co‑Principal Investigator of the SNSF‑funded project “From Pixels to Peace: The Role of Visual Communication in Conflict Transformation”, which will run until 2029. I coordinate this interdisciplinary initiative in partnership with swisspeace, the University of Basel, and USI Università della Svizzera italiana (University of Lugano).

Despite numerous peace initiatives, conflict, war, and violence continue to dominate both public discourse and academic research. Although scholarship increasingly acknowledges that peace and war often coexist as ways of managing conflict, peace itself remains largely invisible. Meanwhile, images of war and violence evoke powerful emotional responses, reinforcing simplistic, binary narratives that obscure the complexities of contemporary conflicts.

Our project seeks to address this imbalance by investigating how peace can be visually communicated in more nuanced and compelling ways. Drawing on concepts such as “everyday peace” and the “local turn” in peacebuilding—which emphasize the significance of local perspectives—we examine visual representations of peace in contexts where it is partial, fragile, and continually negotiated.

Participants from Karlstad university

  • Cornelia Brantner
  • Georgia Aitaki

Partners

  • Laurent Goetschel, University of Basel
  • Katharina Lobinger, Università della Svizzera Italiana
  • Isabel Prinzing, Università della Svizzera italiana
  • Daniela Arenales Caceres, University of Basel
  • Natalia Murillo Villa

Duration

Until 2029