I Couldn't Stand By: Youth, Violence and Peace – An Exhibition of Young Hope

16 Jan-21 Mar 2026

Overview

SOAS Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition developed in collaboration with PositiveNegatives, a SOAS-based organisation internationally recognised for its innovative use of comics, illustration and animation to communicate complex social, humanitarian and environmental issues. By combining ethnographic research with creative storytelling, PositiveNegatives transforms personal testimonies into accessible visual narratives. These materials are designed to engage a wide public audience, particularly young people, with topics that are often difficult to grasp through academic research alone.

This exhibition showcases new visual stories produced as part of the Youth, Violence and Conflict Transformation project, a six-year research initiative funded by the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust. The project investigates the roles of young people in both the escalation of violence and the transformation of conflict across a range of global contexts. While young people are frequently portrayed as a destabilising force in fragile societies, their contributions to peacebuilding are less visible. The research seeks to redress this imbalance by examining the positive and often overlooked impact that young people have on rebuilding communities, supporting civil society and contributing to sustainable peace.

Focusing on five conflict-affected settings, the project explores the lived realities of youth in Algeria, Colombia, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. These case studies allow for a comparative understanding of how young people navigate environments marked by political exclusion, economic marginalisation and social fragmentation. Many young people face limited opportunities for participation in public life and are often excluded from decision-making processes that directly affect their futures. Others experience intersecting forms of marginalisation linked to gender, disability, religion or ethnicity. By foregrounding these perspectives, the project highlights how structural barriers shape the ways in which young people engage with both peacebuilding and conflict.

The exhibition at SOAS Gallery presents illustrated narratives drawn from the Colombia and Algeria case studies. The work has been illustrated by PositiveNegatives Senior Artist, Daniel Locke. These stories reveal how young people negotiate pressures to participate in violence while also carving out spaces for dialogue, reconciliation and community rebuilding. Through the distinctive format of comics and graphic storytelling, PositiveNegatives conveys the emotional complexity of these experiences with clarity and sensitivity. The visual form invites viewers to reflect on the everyday choices, risks and aspirations that underpin youth engagement in settings affected by past or ongoing conflict.

The wider project asks how the peacebuilding sector can more effectively integrate young people into efforts aimed at political transformation and long-term stability. It raises important questions about how public institutions, international organisations and community leaders might create the conditions necessary for youth voices to be heard and valued. The exhibition offers an opportunity for visitors to encounter these questions through the personal accounts of the young people whose lives inform the research.

By bringing academic research into conversation with creative practice, this exhibition demonstrates the power of visual storytelling to communicate urgent global issues. It invites audiences to consider the crucial role that young people play in shaping peaceful and inclusive futures, and underscores the need to recognise and support their contributions within post-conflict societies.

This exhibition was kindly funded by Coventry University, ESRC IAA and Rapid Response Fund