The Foundation of the VII Agency publishes a book titled: Imagine: Reflections on Peace. Its director Gary Knight writes:
In 2003, after years of covering war, I had an idea to look at peace, specifically peace processes and what does–and what doesn’t–make for a successful and long-lasting peace. The concept was to send photographers and war correspondents back to countries they had reported on during conflict and ask them to examine what peace looked like years after the ink on any peace treaties had dried in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda, Lebanon, Cambodia, and Colombia.
Three years ago, after refining the idea and searching for funding, the team at The VII Foundation began working on this in earnest with the generous support of the William, Jeff and Jennifer Gross Family Foundation. The result is Imagine: Reflections on Peace. Thirty men and women contributed written and photographic essays, some of them known names like former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, or chief prosecutor at the ICTY in the Hague, Justice Richard Goldstone, and photographer Sir Don McCullin. Others included some of the world’s leading journalists and photographers from The New Yorker, Magnum and VII photo agency. To understand what peace meant on the ground, we invited local voices to contribute, including Mira Sidawi, a young female Palestinian filmmaker in Lebanon; Sophary Sophin, a female bomb disposal expert from Cambodia; and Elvis Garibovic, a man who survived the Serb concentration camps in Bosnia and rebuilt a new life in New Zealand.
We look at the importance of women in making and securing a lasting peace; at the art and process of negotiation; at the role of justice, economics, and mental health within post-conflict societies. The book is published in English and French this October. We have exhibitions opening this month at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, and in Bayeux, northern France, famous for its epic visual depiction of war, the Bayeux tapestry. COVID-19 allowing, we’ll be bringing the exhibition to the United States.
At a time when domestic issues dominate the news cycle, I hope you’ll take the time to engage with us on longer-term global concerns that will continue to affect us all. Thanks for reading.
Gary Knight
Available for online purchase below, as well as through Amazon and in selected bookstores across the US, UK and Europe on October 6, 2020.
Special pre-publication price through this weekend to October 5, 2020: $39 | £34 | €34.
Published in collaboration with Hemeria, this book of
408 pages, combined in a bound volume designed for
opening that facilitates reading, benefited from know-how
non-standard techniques, especially for photos reproduction.
International release October 6, 2020
Price: 45 € / 49.95 $
Pre-order: 34 € / 39 $
