Peace Aesthetics: A Patchwork

This patchwork‐style article on peace aesthetics is based on the twin idea that it is possible to represent peace visually and that such representation can contribute to peace. Indeed, visual depictions of peace can be found across space and over time. However, they radically differ from one another and are not always easily recognizable as images of peace. The article identifies six problem areas with which visual peace research should engage: (i) representations of peace in the visual arts; (ii) photographic approaches to the aftermath of violent conflict, especially to the aftermath‐as‐event; (iii) peace photography as discussed and practiced in photojournalism; (iv) appropriation as a method in visual peace research; (v) digitization and machine–machine cultures; and (vi) the relationship between imaging and imagining. The analysis suggests that peace aesthetics, as a dissident practice, is both political and critical; it is interdisciplinary and based on an episodic understanding of the relationship between images and peace. It combines empirical, theoretical, and conceptual knowledge produced in the social sciences, art history, and media and communication studies, both with one another and with artistic practice.