Peace is the only struggle worth fighting for.

This could be read on a banner during the peace demonstrations organised by secondary school students against the war in Iraq in 2003. What is distinctive about this slogan is that the traditional anti-militarist stance against rearmament, nuclear weapons or certain wars is here transformed into a positive commitment to peace. Although a conception of peace cannot be developed in detail on a banner, peace appears here as an absolute value in its own right.

The history of conceptions of peace, peace policies and peace movements in Luxembourg, from the French Revolution to the present day, is explored in this exhibition through the perspectives of researchers, artists and peace activists, without claiming to be exhaustive. It shows just how varied definitions of peace can be, as well as the motivations that lead people to commit themselves to it.

Drawing on testimonies, documents from public and private archives, and the collections of numerous associations that, over the past 60 years, have campaigned for a different world and alternative forms of social and political life, as well as official documents from diplomats and political leaders, the exhibition approaches peace from both a bottom-up and a top-down perspective.

The exhibition Executing Peace, curated by historian Mohamed Hamdi, presents different perspectives on aspirations for peace, between utopia and reality. What all these conceptions share is the idea that peace requires continuous commitment. In a sense, therefore, it remains perpetually unfinished. At the same time, the ambiguity of the word “execute” underscores the fact that the means employed to achieve peace may, from other perspectives, risk destroying it.

The exhibition is in French and English.