Thinking Nonviolence with Art and Art’s Histories: Aesthetic Theories and Practices for a Peaceful Planet
A two-day Symposium.
This Symposium is the final public event convened through the research project Peace and Planet: Thinking nonviolence with transcultural art practices, decolonial feminisms and environmental humanities, funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
It is co-hosted by the department’s research clusters, Global Entanglements, Art and Earth, and Nordic Models, and in partnership with Art Hub Copenhagen.
A two-day Symposium probing the potential of art history, aesthetics and the creative arts to contribute to a burgeoning field of transdisciplinary research on pacifism and nonviolence as forms of radical resistance and cultural transformation.
In light of an increasing awareness of the centrality of imagination to prefigurative politics, the part played by art in peaceful forms of coexistence and community-building, and mounting evidence of the success of ‘beautiful risings’ – creative forms of nonviolent civil resistance – this two-day Symposium proposes that it is time to revisit the role of art’s histories, theories and practices in relation to the intellectual frameworks and activist praxis of pacifism and nonviolence.
Nonviolence is a creative and experimental form of worldmaking in which the aesthetic agency of the arts can, and often do, play a critical role. The arts make it possible to reimagine concepts of social and ecological justice as part of a plural and embodied knowledge practice capable of working both within and beyond the academy.
Over two days of presentations and organised discussions, the Symposium will engage with ‘the arts’ in the broadest sense – from works of art to films, commissioned public art and socially-engaged performances, to the writing of art’s histories and theories, and practice-led interventions into the institutional dynamics of curating and collecting. Drawing on a rich conceptual terrain ranging from intersectional feminisms, gender and queer methodologies, to transculturality, decolonial, race-critical, ‘new materialist’ and ecological thinking , the Symposium will provide space both for thinking together, and with art and art’s histories, for a more peaceful planet.
Confirmed keynotes
Confirmed keynotes are Patricia Allmer, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh, and Claire Farago, Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Sign up
Please sign up before 20 April 2026.
If you have registered but are unable to attend, please email peaceandplanet@hum.ku.dk.
Programme
| 9.30 - 10.00 | Arrivals at AHC– refreshments provided |
| 10.00 - 10.20 | Welcome and introduction Marsha Meskimmon and Anne Ring Petersen |
| 10.20 - 11.10 | A Proposal for the Future of the Past: On the Phantasmagoria of Human Exceptionalism Keynote: Claire Farago |
| 11.10 - 11.40 | Morning coffee break - refreshments provided |
| 11.40 – 13.45 | Morning session Introduced and chaired by Kerry Greaves |
| 11.45 - 12.25 | Terra Incognita - Field Aesthetic Exercises in Reversed Contamination Michael Kjær |
| 12.25 – 13.05 | The Politics of Lamentation: Re-imagining War and Environmental Destruction in Madeleine Kate McGowan’s Solastalgia Solveig Gade |
| 13.05 - 13.45 | Monuments of Mourning: ‘Larissa Sansour. These Moments Will Disappear Too’ Birgitte Thorsen Vilslev |
| 13.45 - 14.45 | Lunch – sandwiches, salads and drinks provided |
| 14.45 - 14.50 | Introduction to afternoon sessions Marsha Meskimmon and Anne Ring Petersen |
| 14.50 - 15.20 | Do you see what I am seeing? On communal viewing and collective writing Terne Thorsen |
| 15.20 - 15.50 | Writing Together in the Stoa: Nonviolence, Art and Becoming with Many Sabine Dahl Nielsen |
| 15.50 - 16.20 | Afternoon tea break – refreshments provided |
| 16.20 - 17.00 | Plenary Discussion: Nonviolence in Practice: On Methods and Methodology Sarah El-Taki, Terne Thorsen and Sabine Dahl Nielsen, joined by Alex Christoyannopoulos (Editor of the journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence) |
| 17.00 – 18.00 | Symposium reception – wine, soft drinks and snacks provided |
| 10.00 - 10.30 | Arrivals at AHC – refreshments provided |
| 10.30 - 10.45 | Welcome and introduction Marsha Meskimmon and Anne Ring Petersen |
| 10.45 - 11.35 |
“A FLOWERLIKE FORM”: Women artists, Surrealism,
and the Bomb
Keynote: Patricia Allmer |
| 11.35 - 12.05 | Morning coffee break – refreshments provided |
| 12.05 – 13.25 | Morning session, introduced and chaired by Birgitte Thorsen Vilslev |
| 12.10 - 12.50 | Worldmaking through Index: Avant-garde Calligraphy and Abstract Art in the Postwar period Gunhild Ravn Borggreen |
| 12.50 - 13.30 | Undefeated Despair: Representing Colonial and Anticolonial Violence in Ici et ailleurs Mikkel Bolt |
| 13.30 - 14.30 | Lunch sandwiches, salads and drinks provided |
| 14.30 – 15.30 |
Afternoon forum: Table discussions with presenters and chairs
Opportunity for small-group discussions with presenters and chairs on key themes and issues raised by the symposium. Introduced by Marsha Meskimmon and Anne Ring Petersen
|
| 15.30 - 16.00 | Afternoon tea break – refreshments provided |
| 16.00 - 16.50 | Closing plenary, introduced and chaired by Kerry Greaves Mathias Danbolt in conversation with Elle-Mie Ejdrup Hansen: Revisiting Peace Sculpture 1995 |
| 16.50 – 17.00 | Closing remarks by Marsha Meskimmon and Anne Ring Petersen |
About the project
The two-year project is led by Novo Nordisk Foundation Visiting Professor of Art and Art History, Marsha Meskimmon and Professor Anne Ring Petersen of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.
About Art Hub
AHC – Art Hub Copenhagen – is an art institution in Denmark dedicated to facilitating and accelerating artistic development and knowledge production through residencies, research programmes, public events and partnerships.
Access: Art Hub Copenhagen is fully accessible.