PEACE FOR ALL: A Global Photo Exhibition

On the morning of Friday, September 13, Magnum photographers Olivia Arthur, Cristina de Middel and Lindokuhle Sobekwa gathered at Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross, London, for the launch of a Global Photo Exhibition in partnership with UNIQLO. In the busy hub of central London, a trail of panels featuring the work of the three photographers leads each visitor from King’s Cross Station, through Pancras Square, and directly to the door of the new UNIQLO store at the Coal Drops Yard Shopping Center.

Over the past 12 months, Arthur, De Middel and Sobekwa traveled to three locations to highlight the work of NGOs supported by UNIQLO’s PEACE FOR ALL initiative — Arthur in Romania with Save the Children, De Middel in Vietnam with Plan International, and Sobekwa in Ethiopia with the UNHCR. Through creative workshops in collaboration with each community, the photographic project seeks to amplify their voices and stories.

The collaborative initiative culminates this fall with the launch of three new PEACE FOR ALL T-shirts in UNIQLO stores and online, with all profits donated to the three international organizations that aid people impacted by poverty, discrimination, violence, conflict, and natural disasters. And to further amplify the voices of the three communities, the Global Photo Exhibition, featuring a total of 63 images, is taking place in more than 10 world cities in the coming months, including London, New York, Tokyo, Rome, and Berlin. 

To celebrate the launch of the Global Photo Exhibition, we speak to photographic director and curator Holly Hay about how she brought the three projects together.

The PEACE FOR ALL Global Photo Exhibition features three powerful projects with three different NGOs across the globe. How did you approach the curation? Did you find thematic or visual links between the three projects?

Holly Hay: On seeing the photographs from the three artists, I was very struck by the universal themes permeating throughout. These themes made the work a collection: Shelter, the home, togetherness, play and joy, became the red thread that stitched the images together. The curation had to be about representing these three resilient, global communities through the lens of Magnum and their unrivaled ability to get to the core of storytelling. There were these particular moments in the images that felt like the perfect visual starting points. In Cristina’s project, showing a boarding school in Vietnam in collaboration with Plan International, you see flags in the air outside the school. Somehow this felt like a flag in the ground for the curation, a starting point. Children hand in hand, wearing matching costumes in a performance, act as an arrow, pointing you to the next work. 

Video by Roisin McCauley.

The exhibition at Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross is very much an open-air experience. Can you talk us through the different themes and stages?

Holly Hay: What was very exciting about the sheer expanse of the King’s Cross site was the flexibility to respond to the surroundings with photographs. The exhibition starts opposite the station under the big tree — a meeting spot and shelter. It was the perfect spot to show the images that spoke about home and shelter. King’s Boulevard, the main pedestrian walkway from the station to Granary Square felt like the right moment to celebrate images that presented ideas of travel, movement, and outlook. Outside Central Saint Martins, by the fountains on Granary Square, where hundreds of children stop to play every day, was meant for the images that show beautiful moments of performance, creativity, and play.

It felt important to mix the work and allow the audience to relate to the stories in the pictures. We had 30 benches to present work so we had the space for each photographer to have their individual moment too. For example in Pancras Square the entrance to many of the offices in the area, a place where thousands of commuters end their journey and break for lunch, we have this moment for Olivia Arthur. Her images from Budapest of Ukrainian refugee children in a Save The Children counseling hub show children making shadow puppets in a pop-up studio she created. It’s a powerful moment to see the repetition here and this performance we all did as children. Somehow it makes you feel much closer to the causes.

Each panel has an image from De Middel, Arthur or Sobekwa, paired with a collage or drawing from the workshops that took place in the three locations. Can you tell us about these pairings and what they represent? Why was it important to include these?

Holly Hay: Each artist held workshops while shooting their projects with the people and communities they had photographed. The results of these workshops produced a series of artworks from the participants and these, in dialogue with the photographs, became a very important part of the exhibition. 

It was interesting to hear from Lindo, who photographed refugee families in Ethiopia supported by the UNHCR. The families had left very urgent situations in their home countries, leaving possessions behind, including family photographs. This project became a moment for the family photograph again — creating memories and sharing stories. The artwork combined their own photographs of each other, Lindo’s work, drawings and pieces of text. You may see Lindo’s image of a boy in a tree. You don’t see his face or what he is watching but it’s an uplifting shot about outlook and opportunity. It’s paired with an artwork where you see a girl, again from behind, she is walking in the landscape. It’s collaged with drawings and text and the sentiments in both works feel shared. 

Visit the Global Exhibition in London and New York (5th Avenue) until October 31. For further dates in Hanoi, Stockholm, Taipei, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Rome, Petaling Jaya, Hiroshima and Berlin, check the UNIQLO website.