Peace Prize Exhibition goes home to Colombia

The 2016 Peace Prize Exhibition, featuring President Juan Manuel Santos and the people of Colombia, will open at the National Museum in Bogotá on 28 September. 

“The Nobel Peace Prize 2016 was a tribute both to President Santos and the Colombian people. It is particularly pleasing that the Peace Prize Exhibition is now being made accessible to the people to whom the award was given”, says Liv Tørres, Director of the Nobel Peace Center.

The exhibition that is opening in Colombia is the same as that shown at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. It is made up of large-format photographs that the renowned Danish photographer Mads Nissen took in Colombia in November 2016. At the behest of the Nobel Peace Center, he travelled around the war-ravaged country to create a unique portrait of a president and a people on their way from war to peace. In addition, President Santos has lent the Nobel medal and diploma that he received at the award ceremony in Oslo City Hall. These items will now be on public display for the first time.

“The Nobel Peace Prize and this exhibition, honour the victims of 53 years of conflict and all Colombians. I want to thank the Nobel Peace Center and the National Museum of Colombia for bringing it here”, says President Juan Manuel Santos. “Now that we put an end to the conflict we all must unite in building peace and reconciliation.”

President Santos will be present at the opening of the exhibition Hope over Fear at the National Museum in Bogota on 28 September, barely a week before the new Peace Prize laureate is announced in Oslo.

“An important mission for us as the National Museum of Colombia is to discuss who we are, were and will be as a country. This exhibition gives us a unique opportunity to share and reflect about our most recent history – a history that the Colombian people are experiencing around them every day”, says Director Daniel Castro Benitez at the National Museum of Colombia.

The Peace Prize Exhibition has been an annual tradition at the Nobel Peace Center since it opened in 2005. Work on the exhibition gets underway as soon as a new Peace Prize laureate is announced in October, and it is always opened on 11 December – the day after the Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo City Hall.

This is not the first time the Nobel Peace Center has transferred a Peace Prize Exhibition to the laureate’s native country. In 2013, the exhibition on the EU was shown in Brussels. The exhibition on the International Atomic Energy Agency has been shown in Vienna, and the one about Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank has been on display in Bangladesh.

The exhibition Hope over Fear at the National Museum in Bogota is supported by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and will be available to the public through October.

“I am pleased that the people of Colombia will be able to experience this fine exhibition from the Nobel Peace Center,” says Norway’s ambassador to Colombia, Johan Vibe. “Hope over Fear is not merely a tribute to President Santos and his courageous efforts on behalf of peace, but honours all the victims and their families. They are the ones who have suffered most during this long and bitter conflict that has persisted for more than 50 years.”

Hope over Fear opens at the National Museum in Bogota on Thursday, 28 September at 6.30 pm local time. It opens to the public on Friday 29 September.

Press viewing Wednesday, 27 September at 3 pm local time. Pleace contact prensa@museonacional.gov.co for more information. 

For further information from the Nobel Peace Center, contact Director of Communications Ingvill Bryn Rambøl, Tel: +47 924 52 944 / ibr@nobelpeacecenter.org