RYB
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
Cosmology of Peace: Red Yellow Blue Silk Road
Peace is often treated as a distant ideal, written in treaties and discussed in conference rooms. The Cosmology of Peace brings it closer, as an exhibition, and a growing family of projects people can visit, talk about and take part in.
WHAT DOES COSMOLOGY MEAN
Cosmology is the scientific and philosophical study of the origin, structure, evolution and future fate of the universe as a whole.
The word comes from the Greek kosmos, meaning order, harmony and beauty (the opposite of chaos), and logos, meaning study or reasoning. Every culture along the Silk Road told its own story of how the world is ordered, and many of them told it in colour.
Long before peace became a policy goal, people expressed ideas of harmony in the things they made: in colour, pattern and geometry, from the designs of ancient textiles to cities built around a shared square. The Cosmology of Peace takes this long view.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
A framework, not a slogan
These questions connect RYB’s projects into one story. Each project looks different, but each explores how people build peace together.
01
Where does peace come from?
Long before peace became a policy goal, people expressed ideas of harmony in the things they made — through colour, pattern and geometry.
02
How is peace built?
In colours, cities, calendars and budgets. The Silk Road, Creative Cities and Culture Women’s Days each look at one of these building blocks.
03
How does it change?
Peace is not a fixed state. It shifts with trade routes, with migration, with the stories a society tells about itself.
04
What could its future be?
The exhibition asks visitors to add their own answer, in the gallery and in the Agora of Knowledge that travels with it.
THE EXHIBITION
A meeting place, designed to travel
An exhibition can take place anywhere: in a gallery, a museum, a public hall or on a city square. Wherever the Cosmology of Peace appears, it is designed as a meeting place — visitors are invited to talk with artists, researchers, local makers and each other about the questions their own city faces.
We want every stop to be easy to enter, to welcome people who have never visited an exhibition, and to work with local artists and organisations, including the small independent ones that shape a city but are often overlooked.
The exhibition begins with colour. Ancient carpets, pottery and manuscripts tell the story; new contemporary art continues it. In time it will travel from city to city.
THE AGORA OF KNOWLEDGE
You are not only here to look.
A meeting space — a café or media room — sits at the heart of each exhibition. It is a place to sit, talk and share ideas, with an online forum so the conversation continues after you leave.
THREE DOORS INTO ONE IDEA
The projects that make the framework visible
A culture of peace, as promoted by the United Nations and UNESCO, is not only made by governments and treaties. It grows in daily life — through the colours we wear, the things we make, the cities we share and the days we celebrate together.