Peace Monuments Dedicated in 2008 (Year of Olympic Games in Beijing)

Right click image to enlarge.

March 28, 2008 - Jeju April 3 Peace Memorial Hall, Peace Park, Jeju Island (South Korea).

March 30, 2008 - Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial, Justin Herman Plaza, foot of Market Street, Embarcadero, San Francisco, California (USA). "Designed by Ann Chamberlain and Walter Hood. Donated by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and Veterans & Friends of the ALB. 40-foot long monument comprised of 45 onyx panels held together by a steel structure. The translucent stone squares show scenes from the war and the faces of some US volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), as well as words about the period from writers like Ernest Hemingway." Other ALB memorials in Madison, WI, & Seattle, WA (qv).

April 15, 2008 - Gong Perdamaian Dunia / World Peace Gong (WPG), Godollo, Magyarország (Hungary). From Indonesia.

May 2008 - "Healing Hands," St. Peter & St. Paul Cathedral, Ennis, County Claire (Ireland). Pair of hands sculpured from Threecastles limestone by local artist Shane Gilmore. Six plaques give various interpretations, e.g. peace ("marking a new era of peace on the island of Ireland"), welcome ("acknowledging the presense of immigrants..."), cooperation, healing, and faith, and quoting Isaiah 49:15 ("I will not forget you. I have carved your name on the palm of my hand."). Info courtesy of Julie Obermeyer.

May 2008 - Matrimandir, Peace Area, Auroville, Tamil Nadu (India). Means "Temple of The Mother" in Sanskrit. An edifice of spiritual significance for practitioners of Integral yoga. Called soul of the city. Took 37 years to build. The surrounding Peace Area (right image) has three main features: The Matrimandir itself with its twelve gardens, twelve petals and future lakes, the Amphitheatre and the Banyan Tree. The area is seen as a whole and work in the different sections proceeds simultaneously.

Late May 2008 - International Peace Garden, Kyiv (Ukraine). One of many International Peace Gardens in different countries. Prewented to Kyiv by Bern (Switzerland).

May 31, 2008 - "Million Penny Project," Groton-Dunstable Middle School, Groton, Massachusetts (USA). Clear acrylic 5x6 foot container filled 2 feet deep with 1,500,000 US pennies, representing each of the 1,500,000 Jewish children killed during the Holocaust. Inspired by the paper clip project in Whitwell, Tennessee (qv), students of teacher Niki Rockwell began collecting pennies in 2006. Donations were received from Polish Holocaust survivor Norman Salsitz, Russian Jewish descendent A. Raymond Tye, and many others. Info & image courtesy of Jayme Kulesz.

June 24, 2008 - Peace Marker Republic of Slovenia, Point of Peace #8, Tiité?, Litija Mayor (Slovenia). One of eight Worldwide Peace Markers. Image shows Litija Mayor Rokavec accepting the Peace Marker.

2008 - Atlanta Peace Trails (APT), Atlanta, Georgia (USA). Being developed by Tourism For Peace (TFP) & Partnerships In Peace (PIP). Click here for Atlanta: City of Peace.

2008 - "The Mahatma" (Gandhi Statue), Toledo Area Sculptors Guild, 211 Cedar Street, Gibsonburg, Ohio (USA). Sculpted by James Havens. On sale for $60,000. Havens also made Peace Sculpture at Woodstock School, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand (India).

October 23, 2008 - "Peace," Mt. Evans Hospice & Home Health Care, Evergreen Parkway, Evergreen, Colorado (USA). "Chosen from 78 submissions, the piece by Lorri Acott-Fowler is a fourteen foot bronze figure, reaching up to the sky and releasing multi-colored origami folded cranes." Click here to see videio of the artist's dedication speech.

August 2, 2008 - Peace Cranes from Webb School Peace Project, photographed at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Knoxville, Tennessee (USA). Just a few of the many peace cranes sent to the church immediately after a tragic shooting on July 27, 2008. Photo by EWL.

August 6, 2008 - "Stories of Hope," permanent exhibit at Peace Resource Center (PRC), Wilmington College of Ohio, Wilmington, Ohio (USA). Highlights four stories: PRC founder Barbara Leonard Reynolds [1915-1990], Sadako Sasaki [1943-1955], the Hiroshima Maidens, and Dr. Takashi Nagai [1908-1951], the first published writer of the A-Bomb experience. The PRC has "the world's largest collection (outside of Japan) of reference materials related to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Entry #820 in the "Peace Movement Directory" by James Richard Bennett (2001). One of 27 US museums in "Museums for Peace Worldwide" edited by Kazuyo Yamane (2008).

September 2008 - Place of Peace, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina (USA). "An authentic Japanese Place of Peace, the temple is part of a larger vision to create an Asian Studies Center at Furman which will further excel Furman into the nation's top Asian Studies programs." Gift of the Tsuzuki family of Nagoya (Japan).

October 3, 2008 - Friedens-Ei / Peace Egg, Grossmünster place, Zurich (Switzerland). Made by Peace Brigades International (PBI). "The 2.5 meters wide and 80 kilo anniversary egg was at the University of Berne under the direction of Dr. Stefan Stankowski, professor of physics and director Fachschaftssitzung physics, science and research and Giorgio Insom, Researcher, University of Applied Sciences Berne planned and assembled. The interplay between technology and peace is unique and illustrates the fragility and vulnerability of human rights."

October 7, 2008 - Mayo Memorial Peace Park & Garden of Remembrance, Castlebar, County Mayo (Ireland). "Honours the memory of all those from Mayo, who served and died in all wars worldwide and conflicts of the past century, with the Allied and Commonwealth Forces, a forgotten generation who were written out of local history until recent times." Opened by the President of Ireland, Mary Mc Alesee.

October 6-10, 2008 - 6th International Conference of Museums for Peace, International Network of Museums for Peace (INMP), at the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto University of Arts and Design, and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Conference theme: "Peace Museums as Spaces for Creating Peace." Click here for special interest group session list. Click here for the Report of the 6th International Conference. Conference logo (right image) adopted as the permanent logo of the INMP.

Fall 2008 - Tolerance Monument, Tolerance Park, Jerusalem (Israel). 15-meter monument "funded by Polish businessman Aleksander Gudzowaty as a symbol to promote peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Between Jewish Armon Hanatziv and Arab Jabal Mukaber and just outside the United Nations headquarters in Jerusalem's "Government House."

October 27 or 28, 2008 - Peres Peace House, Jaffa (Israel). "A magnificent building of huge green blocks, which cost $15 million, three times the original estimate. The building is windowless & air-conditioned throughout & blocked off from its surroundings, which are home to a poor Arab population. Its faces the sea, as though its builders were hinting that the chance for peace lies in the West, beyond the sea, & not in the East, where neighbor enemies dwell." Named for Shimon Peres and dedicated on the tenth anniversary of the Peres Center for Peace.

G O N G

November 22, 2008 - Gong Perdamaian Dunia / World Peace Gong (WPG), Patuxay, Vientiane (Laos). From Indonesia.

M U S E U M

November 23, 2008 - National Sikh Heritage Centre & Holocaust Museum, Princes Street, Pear Tree, Derby (England). "A modern, packed, multi-channel museum with real artefacts that allow the visitor to appreciate the rich and complex heritage of the Sikhs in a story of courage, sacrifice and bloody genocide." "One hopes we will see similar initiatives in the US and Canada as well."

P L A Q U E

December 6, 2008 - Plaque honoring Norman Angell, The Peace Museum, Bradford (England). Unveiled by the lord mayor of Bradford. Location #26 on the Bradford Peace Trail (qv). Sir Norman Angell [1872-1967] received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. Right image is Angell's birthplace at 45 High Street, Holbeach, Lincolnshire (now the Mansion House Hotel).