Let us be lifted by the arts like the artists have lifted them upwards, outwards, beyond the ordinary beyond the run of the mill; making us see far beyond borders and cleavages in our untidy human landscape into other eyes that also have been lifted beyond the ordinary to be united in peace.
This poem by Johan Galtung was written as a preface for an art exhibition at the Galleri Lista Fyr in Lindesnes, Norway. In his chapter Peace, Music and the Arts; In Search of Interconnections, Galtung talks about how art and music have the ability of transcending the observer/listener into a sense of virtual reality and in a sence uprooting us. Galtung also states that art and music can be used to create division or unity by giving voice to religion, social/political ideas ect. To that end, Music and art can also be a tool for peace.