In “Coloring outside the lines? Imaginary reconstitution of security in Yemen through image transformations”, Yelyzaveta Glybchenko develops the novel methodology of “imaginary reconstitution of security” during-/post-war communities through transformations of photographic peace images. Her methodology is a unique case of using digital visual image transformations for building moving security/peace constellations, which can express negotiated malleable demos of peace arrangements. This way, the methodology of “imaginary reconstitution of security” is a new possibility to make the processes of designing and implementing peace agreements more democratic through digital visual deliberation and critical local empowerment.
Peacetech as an industry is so nascent, that no academic research has been published to fill the notion with precise peace-centered content, let alone form an original and professionally skilled visual artistic perspective. Yelyzaveta theorizes visual peacetech by exploring 1) digital visuality of peace and security in war-affected communities, 2) virtual reality design for UX-peacework and 3) augmented reality image-making as a peacebuilding strategy. Yelyzaveta’s research includes practical tool-development (the digital media products she creates as part of research experiments) for digital peacebuilders seeking to employ visual peace technology.
The learnings from the project (including the VR exhibition) became part of the now 9-month-long art-for-peace support program, designed and run by Yelyzaveta Glybchenko for displaced Ukrainians in Finland, as well as (more recently) Ukrainians in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Iceland. These learnings also became part of the virtual self-paced program to support people affected by war all over the globe, especially Ukrainians. This program was developed by Yelyzaveta’s peacebuilding startup Color Up Peace in collaboration with the Finnish award-winning online company Claned.
Color Up Peace was founded by Yelyzaveta Glybchenko in 2016 as her response to external aggression against her home country Ukraine and the illegal occupation of her home region Crimea. The idea behind Color Up Peace was to encourage participants to think about peace and what peace means to them; to create opportunities for sharing visions of peace through artistic and digital means; to foster dialogue through collective art-making; to challenge the abundance of violence-centered visuals in the media and popular culture; and to employ digital visual art-making as a peacebuilding tool. Color Up Peace invites people from all over the world to submit photos of what peace is to them which Yelyzaveta turns into coloring pages for others to engage with and transform the original vision of peace. The transformation is a form of demo-making for peace arrangements through visual and digital means. This digital-artistic transformation is at the core of such Color Up Peace activities as international training and context-specific workshops in 13 countries to support people affected by war – especially Ukrainians.