A stepped six-tiered pyramid dominated the main Ketelhuisplein square at Dutch Design Week this year, wrapped in colourful flags offering 80 different symbols for peace.
Each flag for the Temple of Peace was created by a design graduate together with a current or former refugee ? hailing from Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Yemen, Palestine and beyond.
Peace Seekers has created an installation called Temple of Peace
The project was initiated by Ingeborg Bloem and Stefany Rietkerk, founders of the non-profit Peace Seekers Foundation, to find new emblems for peace in this era when there are now more violent conflicts than at any time since the second world war.
"We need new symbols and stories for peace because the symbols that we're using now are all more than 60 years old," Bloem said, referencing iconic motifs like the white dove and Gerald Holtom's three-pronged peace sign. It features 80 different flags made by refugees and design graduates
The Temple of Peace consists of a scaffold structure designed by Bloem based on the many-tiered Buddhist pagodas of Nepal, while the banners resemble colourful prayer flags.
The textile hangings themselves were each designed in an hour and made in a day via workshops bringing together refugees and students recruited from Dutch art and design schools, in a process that Bloem likens to speed dating.
The Temple of Peace is a pyramid with six different tiers
"When the music stopped, they had to work with the person next to them,&q...