ABSTRACT
Peace photography – in contrast to war photography – does not exist as a concept in the professional discourse on images. Only a few authors ask what a photograph of peace might look like. If peace is understood negatively as "absence of violence of all kinds" then both peace and images of peace are impossible. Even aftermath photography, commencing when physical violence has stopped, is inseparably connected with the preceding violence as the condition of possibility for its existence. Such photography can show that for many people and in many cases suffering is not over once the use of physical force has stopped, but the move from aftermath to peace is difficult to visualise. The process character of visions of peace has another dimension. It is one of the important ingredients of participatory and collaborative work in photography and the visual arts to help transform people who had been subjects of representations of others into agents of their own image.
