The International Committee of Artists for Peace: Using Art to Foster Nonviolence

When we think about how peace is built, we usually picture treaties, negotiations, or peacekeeping forces. But there is another, quieter force at work: culture. Songs, paintings, theatre, and dance have a way of reaching people that political speeches cannot. The International Committee of Artists for Peace (ICAP) is built entirely on this idea. It is a global network of artists who believe that creativity can dissolve the hostility that fuels conflict and replace it with understanding. For students of peace movements and conflict resolution, ICAP offers a clear case study in how soft power and culture function as tools for nonviolence.

What is the International Committee of Artists for Peace? 🔗

ICAP is an organisation of artists who use the creative power of the arts to promote peace, humanism, and nonviolence. It was founded in 2002 by a group of celebrated musicians and performers, including jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, actor Patrick Duffy, and the flamenco artists Pascual and Angela Olivera, together with their mentor, the Buddhist philosopher and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda. The organisation’s stated goal is to create a culture of peace and to develop future peacemakers through what it calls the transformative power of the arts.

The structure of ICAP reflects its philosophy. Rather than functioning as a top-down institution, it works as a community of committed individuals who collaborate with other people and organisations that share its mission. According to its official profile, ICAP has, since 2002, sponsored concerts, musicals, exhibitions, dialogues, and peace-building workshops, all designed to instil the ideals of humanism and nonviolence in young people. Over the years its activities have reached audiences across three continents.

Why use art to build peace? 🔗

The central conviction behind ICAP is that art communicates across the barriers that usually divide people. Language, religion, nationality, and political ideology all create distance between communities. A piece of music or a painting, however, can be understood without translation. This makes the arts a natural medium for building empathy between groups that might otherwise see each other as enemies.

This thinking is not unique to ICAP. It echoes a much larger international consensus. The preamble to the UNESCO Constitution famously states that since wars begin in the minds of people, it is in the minds of people that the defences of peace must be constructed. If conflict starts as an attitude, then peace must also be cultivated at the level of attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. Art works precisely at this level. It shapes how people feel about one another long before any policy can take effect.

Negative peace versus positive peace 🔗

Peace research draws a useful distinction here. Negative peace simply means the absence of direct violence, such as a ceasefire or the end of a war. Positive peace goes further. It refers to a society where the conditions for violence, such as injustice, intolerance, and mistrust, have themselves been reduced. ICAP’s work is squarely aimed at positive peace. Concerts and workshops do not end wars by themselves, but they build the tolerance, dialogue, and shared values that make lasting peace possible. This is why ICAP describes its goal as creating a culture of peace, not merely stopping a particular conflict.

How ICAP puts its mission into practice 🔗

ICAP translates its philosophy into action through three broad types of activity: performances, educational programmes, and collaborative projects. Each one targets a different way that art can influence society.

Performances and peace concerts 🔗

Music sits at the heart of ICAP, which is unsurprising given that its co-presidents were two of the most respected figures in jazz. The organisation has presented peace concerts that use music as a bridge between cultures and a reminder of shared humanity. These events are not only entertainment. They are public statements that bring people of different backgrounds, faiths, and talents into the same space to experience something together.

Some of these performances carry deep symbolic weight. ICAP artists have made visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to honour the victims of nuclear weapons, linking their music directly to the cause of disarmament and the rejection of mass violence. By performing in places marked by tragedy, the artists turn memory into a call for a more peaceful future.

Educational workshops and the “I Choose” programme 🔗

Performances reach large audiences, but ICAP also wants to shape individuals over the long term, especially the young. Its peace-building workshops teach youth and community members how to use art as a tool for nonviolent communication. These sessions often involve hands-on creative activities, so participants are not just listening to a message about peace but practising it through their own work.

A well-known example is the “I Choose” programme, which engages young people through music and dance to encourage dialogue and to promote peaceful choices over violence and bullying. The name itself captures the philosophy: peace is presented as a deliberate choice that each person can make, rather than something handed down by authorities. This focus on personal responsibility is what ICAP means when it talks about developing future peacemakers.

Exhibitions and collaborative projects 🔗

Beyond music, ICAP creates and sponsors exhibitions that explore themes of peace and human dignity through the visual arts. It also honours extraordinary individuals whose lives advance the cause of peace, using recognition as a way to highlight role models for others to follow. Much of this work is collaborative. ICAP partners with like-minded organisations rather than acting alone, which multiplies its reach and connects the arts community to the broader peace movement.

Engaging youth and communities 🔗

One of ICAP’s clearest priorities is the next generation. The organisation directs much of its energy toward instilling the ideals of humanism and peaceful coexistence in today’s youth. There is a practical logic to this. Attitudes formed in childhood and adolescence tend to last a lifetime. If young people learn early to value dialogue, empathy, and creative expression, they are less likely to be drawn toward hatred and violence as adults.

This approach also reflects the personal beliefs of ICAP’s founders. In an open letter to younger artists, co-presidents Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter argued that an individual does not need to work for a large NGO to make a difference, and that the construction of peace begins with each person. The message places ordinary people, and especially young creators, at the centre of peacebuilding rather than treating peace as the exclusive job of governments.

ICAP and the global culture of peace 🔗

ICAP’s vocabulary of a “culture of peace” is not accidental. It connects the organisation to a major international framework. In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. This document defined peace as more than the absence of conflict, describing it as a positive, participatory process built on respect for human rights, tolerance, education, and dialogue. It called for a global movement involving not just states but civil society, the media, parents, teachers, and artists.

ICAP can be understood as part of exactly that movement. Its concerts, workshops, and exhibitions advance the same values the UN identified: tolerance, intercultural understanding, education for peace, and the rejection of violence. The organisation explicitly aligns itself with the effort to expand circles of friendship and cooperation in support of a worldwide culture of peace, as noted in its peacebuilding profile. In this sense, the artists are not working in isolation. They are one creative thread within a much larger international fabric of peacebuilding.

Why ICAP matters for the study of peace movements 🔗

ICAP is a useful example because it shows that peace movements take many forms. We often associate nonviolence with figures like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., and with mass protests and civil disobedience. ICAP demonstrates a complementary path, one that works through culture rather than confrontation. Where Gandhi mobilised people through moral and political action, ICAP mobilises them through shared aesthetic experience. Both rest on the same foundation: the conviction that nonviolence is more powerful than force.

The organisation also illustrates the idea of soft power in civil society. ICAP holds no political office and commands no army, yet it influences how people think and feel about peace. This is the kind of quiet, long-term cultural work that rarely makes headlines but slowly changes the environment in which conflicts either grow or fade. For anyone studying the relationship between civil society, conflict, and peacebuilding, ICAP is a reminder that culture is not a luxury added on top of politics. It is one of the deepest places where peace is either won or lost.

What do you think? Can art and music really change attitudes deeply enough to prevent conflict, or are they only a complement to political and economic solutions? And if culture is so central to peace, how might initiatives like ICAP be adapted to address the specific social tensions in your own region?

References

1. https://www.herbiehancock.com/2016/04/30/nternational-committee-of-artists-for-peace-icap/
2. https://icapeace.org/about-icap/
3. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000126398
4. https://icapeace.org/2025/04/07/herbie-hancock-the-artists-role-in-promoting-peace/
5. https://www.un.org/pga/73/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/2019/08/Resolution-A_RES_53_243-Declaration-Programme-of-Action-199.pdf
6. https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/organisations/international-committee-artists-peace/