The Art of Meeting Your Enemy

Can art bring us closer to people we have been taught to see as enemies all our lives?

Young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan have grown up with a conflict that has left deep scars on both societies. But a group of young people have decided to try something different: to come together across the divide and use art and culture to challenge perceptions of the enemy, build relationships and imagine a different future.

When the group first met, they were nervous and afraid of saying the wrong thing. Yet they chose to break the silence. They began talking to each other, sharing their personal stories and building trust.

Since then, they have developed creative ideas and projects across Armenia and Azerbaijan: music in both languages, art, storytelling, dance, podcasts, food and exhibitions. What these projects have in common is an effort to create new narratives about one another and new spaces for dialogue.

On 12 November, we invite you to an evening exploring the role of art and culture in building peace and reconciliation.

In the first part of the evening, we will meet the young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan and explore their creative work. What happens when people from opposite sides of a conflict begin creating something together? Can music, images, dance and storytelling open up conversations that politics struggles to make possible?

In the second part, we will broaden the perspective. Together with young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Palestinian/Jewish Alliance, we will explore what it takes to connect across enemy lines. How do you take the first step? How do you challenge narratives of "us" and "them"? And how do you imagine a shared future when the past is still very much present?

It will be an evening about war and conflict, but above all, about the courage to come together, create something collectively and insist that history does not have to repeat itself.

The event is held in English and is free – sign up via Billetto above. It is supported by the Tuborg Foundation and organised in collaboration with the Academy for Hope and Action and the New Peace Movement.