Harnessing Aesthetic Power: Repositioning the Arts in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

The role of artists in peacebuilding is often either undervalued or overlooked. This article argues that artists are central to norm-building and institution-forming by virtue of their ability to mobilise the arts’ aesthetic power to serve the cause of peace. The mobilisation of this aesthetic power provides a central role for artists in peacebuilding and particularly in human rights education. It also simultaneously places artists at risk and thus while artists’ involvement in peacebuilding should be maximised, we argue that attendant risks to them need to be minimised through explicit international protection mechanisms.