The Pacifist Gallery Project

To the left, you will find the names of several pacifists who we believe have made important contributions to society. This is our Online Pacifist Gallery Project. By clicking on the name of a pacifist, you will be able to find a corresponding biography highlighting that pacifist’s most outstanding contributions to peace. This online project is part of a much larger undertaking called the Friends Peace Center’s Pacifist Gallery project.

The roots for this project reach all the way back to the late 1980’s when various members of the Friends Peace Center (CAP) decided to create a photographic gallery commemorating men and women, who, in distinct moments in history, made concrete contributions toward world peace and the defense of human rights. This gallery includes eighteen pacifists in exposition in the main meeting room of the Friends Peace Center. One of them, George Fox, is the founder of Quakerism.

Currently, we are writing biographical information in association with the pacifists featured in the photo gallery. This is important since it is probable that the majority of the people who visit the center do not recognize most of the pacifists. This means that the gallery is far from reaching its potential in educating its viewers and allowing them to reflect on their own life and world in relation with the lives and worlds of the pacifists.

Aware of this weakness, we are in the process of designing posters which will carry smaller pictures and biographical information on each of the pacifists. However, we have plans to expand the project even further. These additional plans took root in the final days of 2004 when May, a guest of Casa Ridgway (our Peace Center’s hostel), suggested that we name the rooms of our hostel in honor of the gallery pacifists.

Since then, the plans for the gallery project have not just become a means for an end in and of itself, but have also become a way of attracting more people to the Peace Center so that they can learn about and participate in our activities. In particular, we also plan to open our library to the public and create a ceramic path from el Parque de la Democracia to Casa Ridgway and the Peace Center.

If you are ever in San José, Costa Rica, we hope you will stop by and say hello. Our doors are open.