The Art for Freedom initiative is calling for an active role in the peace process: instead of retreating into protected spaces, it says, art needs to get involved, resist, and take on social responsibility.
The Art for Freedom initiative has presented the results of its online “Peace Forum” held on June 23. In a detailed final statement published on Monday, the participating artists and cultural figures call for an end to discriminatory and repressive policies and present eight concrete proposals for a new social peace process.
The forum focused on the key questions “What kind of peace do we want?” and “How can peace be anchored in society?” The discussions resulted in an appeal to politicians, society, and the cultural scene to take responsibility and to no longer remain silent.
The statement by the initiative reads: “Peace does not only mean the absence of violence, but also coexistence based on justice, recognition, and equality. Collective responsibility is needed—including from artists, whose freedoms are increasingly being restricted.”
The participants emphasize that the desire for peace, as recently demonstrated by the PKK in a symbolic act of renouncing arms, must not go unanswered. “The state must take up this action and immediately take its own steps.”
The forum’s eight-point declaration contains the following core demands:
1. Coming to terms with the past and collective remembrance: A new peace process requires a critical examination of the past and a shared culture of remembrance. The mistakes of previous initiatives must not be repeated—the focus must be on justice and structural change.
2. Art as a tool for change: Artists have a responsibility to highlight social injustices. Art is not merely an expression, but an active part of political discourse. Remaining silent in times of repression is not an option.
3. Participation of all social groups: Peace should not be left to political actors alone. A broad civil society alliance—from artists and scientists to grassroots initiatives—must act together.
4. Protection of public spaces and freedom of expression: Restrictions on freedom of expression and artistic freedom—in particular through censorship, trustees, and pressure on opposition municipalities—threaten social discourse. Peace work can only take place in an open, democratic environment.
5. Remembering 2013: Breaking the silence: The peace talks that began in 2013 raised high hopes, but came to an abrupt end in 2015. Since then, talking about peace has been increasingly criminalized. This enforced silence must be broken – with new words, images, and songs.
6. Social anchoring and dissemination: Peace must be promoted in all areas of society—through local initiatives, cultural events, and social media. The debate must also be conducted outside the Kurdish regions.
7. Thinking peace and ecology together: The destruction of nature through large-scale industrial projects is also a form of violence. The fight against environmental destruction is part of the peace process—both symbolically and practically.
8. International networking and solidarity: The peace process should be conceived beyond national borders. Relations with artists in exile and in the diaspora must be strengthened, and international perspectives must be incorporated.
The Art for Freedom initiative does not see its proposal as a definitive plan, but rather as an invitation to dialogue. “Peace begins where people talk to each other again – in all the languages, images, and sounds that this country knows,” the group says.
The “Art for Freedom” initiative
Launched in July 2024 in Amed (tr. Diyarbakır), the Art for Freedom initiative does not view art as a closed discipline, but rather as a social practice that opposes restriction, violence, and political appropriation. In their self-image, the participating artists emphasize that art is always greater than the person who creates it—it has its own imagination, its own dreams, its own direction. Where art retreats into protected spaces, it loses its transformative power.
“A dream is born to become free,” says the manifesto of the initiative. But this freedom is only possible if art does not come to terms with the world as it is, but imagines new realities—even and especially where these are suppressed, criminalized, or dismissed as utopian. In times of growing political repression, censorship, and social division, the initiative calls for art to be brought out of its ivory tower and placed back at the center of social life—not as a decorative accessory, but as an active voice against inequality, exclusion, and violence.
Artists must summon the courage to intervene, to speak the unspeakable, and to join forces with those voices calling for justice from prisons, from destroyed forests, from banned languages, and from impoverished neighborhoods. The initiative counters art that seeks refuge in aesthetics and distance with the ideal of an engaged, collective artistic practice—resistant, vulnerable, alive. “For when trees, animals, and people can no longer breathe, the first thing we must fight for is equal access to oxygen,” the manifesto states.
“The creative forces of this society should speak louder than any weapon,” is the central message of the initiative. It demands not only the right to art, but also the social conditions under which this right can be experienced by all: freedom of expression, cultural diversity, and sustainable peace. The manifesto ends with the words, “In the beginning was the deed.
