The Art of War & Peace/ Special Editionn

War and peace are not opposites. They are entangled states—historical, psychological, political, and deeply personal. They coexist within nations, communities, and individuals, often simultaneously. In this special edition of the magazine, we explore The Art of War & Peace not as a binary theme, but as a spectrum of human experience shaped by conflict, survival, resistance, reconciliation, memory, and hope.

Throughout history, artists have been witnesses to war and architects of peace—not always by offering solutions, but by revealing truths that resist simplification. From ancient battle reliefs and protest songs to quiet acts of care, ritual, and repair, art has continually responded to violence and its aftermath, asking how we endure, how we remember, and how we imagine different futures.

Volume 89 brings together an international selection of artists whose practices engage with these questions in profoundly varied ways. Across media—painting, sculpture, textile, photography, collage, digital work, performance, and interdisciplinary practices—this edition presents artworks that confront visible and invisible forms of conflict, while also tracing pathways toward healing, coexistence, and renewal.

For some artists in this issue, war appears explicitly: as geopolitical crisis, historical trauma, displacement, environmental collapse, or systemic oppression. For others, it is internalized—expressed through fragmented bodies, contested identities, psychological tension, or the quiet struggle to remain human within hostile systems. Peace, likewise, is not always portrayed as resolution or calm. It emerges instead as a process: fragile, provisional, sometimes uneasy, often unfinished.

This edition deliberately avoids heroic narratives and romanticized binaries. Instead, it foregrounds complexity. Peace is shown not as an absence of war, but as labor—emotional, social, spiritual, and political. War is examined not only as armed conflict, but as language, economics, ideology, and the erosion of empathy. Many of the works published here operate in the liminal space between these states, where vulnerability and resistance coexist.

A defining feature of Collect Art has always been its commitment to artist voice. In this special edition, each published artist is presented not only through their work, but through carefully contextualized biographies, artist statements, and personalised interviews. These conversations allow readers to encounter the thinking, experiences, and ethical positions that shape each practice—revealing how artists navigate responsibility, memory, and imagination in relation to war and peace.

The international scope of this volume is essential. Conflict is never isolated, and peace is never local alone. The artists featured come from different cultural, political, and historical contexts, offering perspectives shaped by lived experience, inherited memory, or critical observation. Together, they form a polyphonic archive of responses—sometimes confrontational, sometimes poetic, sometimes quietly defiant.

Importantly, this edition also acknowledges the role of art as a site of agency. Art does not merely reflect reality; it reconfigures perception. It slows us down where violence accelerates, creates space where rhetoric collapses, and holds ambiguity where certainty is weaponized. In a time when images circulate faster than understanding, artists remind us how to look—and how to feel—more carefully.

The Art of War & Peace is not intended to resolve contradictions or offer closure. Instead, it invites sustained attention. It asks readers to sit with discomfort, to recognize resilience, and to consider how acts of making—however small—can challenge dehumanization and cultivate connection. Whether through critique, remembrance, satire, tenderness, or symbolic transformation, the works in this volume affirm art’s enduring capacity to bear witness and to imagine otherwise.

As you move through Volume 89, we encourage you to read slowly, to return to images and words, and to listen to the distinct voices gathered here. In doing so, this special edition becomes more than a publication—it becomes a shared space of reflection on what it means to live, create, and remain attentive in a world shaped by both war and the persistent, necessary work of peace.