Silk Kashan Carpet, made in Iran, probably Kashan, 16th century — The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Cosmology of Peace: Red Yellow Blue Silk Road
Peace is often treated as a distant ideal, something written in treaties and discussed in conference rooms. The Cosmology of Peace brings it closer. It is an exhibition, and a growing family of projects, that people can visit, talk about and take part in.
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 not only guided past artworks. They 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.
This thinking is shared by others who want cultural spaces to open up to their cities, as in this opinion piece by UNESCO Netherlands (in Dutch).
The exhibition begins with colour. Across history, civilisations that never met reached for the same three colours: red, yellow and blue. Ancient carpets, pottery and manuscripts tell that story, and new contemporary art continues it. Discover the exhibition or follow the story to its roots in the Red Yellow Blue Silk Road. In time, the exhibition will travel from city to city.
This website is part of the exhibition. Visitors who meet the artworks in person can continue here, where every project is explained in detail. Below you will find our other projects. You can also explore how it all connects to RYB’s wider Culture of Peace programme.
Cosmology of Peace
What Does Cosmology Mean?
Cosmology is the scientific and philosophical study of the origin, structure, evolution and future fate of the entire universe as a whole. It asks where everything comes from, how it is ordered, how it changes and where it is going.
The word itself comes from the Greek kosmos, which meant 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.
What Is the Cosmology of Peace?
Long before peace became a policy goal, people expressed ideas of harmony in the things they made. They did it through 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.
It borrows the word cosmology to ask four simple questions about peace. Where does it come from? How is it built, in colours, cities and calendars? How does it change? And what could its future be?
These questions connect our projects into one story. The Red Yellow Blue Silk Road, Creative Cities for Culture of Peace and Culture Women’s Days look different, but each explores how people build peace together. The exhibition brings them into one place and invites you to add your own answers.
Explore the Exhibition: Doors into the Cosmology of Peace
Peace is something we all share, and each of us has our own ideas about it. That is why it is the theme of this exhibition, and not something we claim to deliver. The Cosmology of Peace invites you to look at peace through colour, art, cities and everyday life, and to add your own view.
The exhibition zooms in on the Red Yellow Blue Silk Road, an ancient art route that connected cultures. Its carpets, pottery and manuscripts share the same three colours. We extend that route to today, with contemporary art made and shown now. We begin with a small group of creatives. As the exhibition grows and travels from city to city, more artists and visitors can join and help shape it.
You are not only here to look. A meeting space called the Agora of Knowledge, such as a café or media room, is a place to sit, talk and share your ideas, with an online forum so the conversation continues after you leave. Below you will find the Silk Road exhibition and the other projects that are part of the Cosmology of Peace.
1. The Red Yellow Blue Silk Road
For centuries, the Silk Road linked East and West. Silk, spices and ideas travelled along it, and so did art. Carpets, pottery and manuscripts made in very different places often share the same colours, symbols and patterns, and red, yellow and blue appear again and again. What did these ancient cultures have in common? That is what we are searching for in Cosmology of Peace: Red Yellow Blue Silk Road, an exhibition where East meets West.
Visitors can explore what we have found so far, including how colour was used in China and how those ideas may have travelled and met other civilisations. We also ask whether this shared history can be of value today: for our understanding of cosmology, for a culture of peace, and for the world we live in now.
In a time of difficult news, this is a positive story. Beyond borders and trade routes, East and West share a long history of art and culture. The exhibition aims to build a creative bridge between cultures, and to learn how citizens can help improve understanding between countries through culture and cultural diplomacy.
The route does not end in the past. Contemporary artists show new Red Yellow Blue Silk Road artworks, made today. These works do not all have to use the three colours. The theme is peace. They build on ancient art and extend its message of universal peace into the present. We start with a few creatives, and more artists and visitors can join as the exhibition grows and travels from city to city.
2. Creative Cities for Culture of Peace
Peace is not only made in conference rooms. It is made in the places where we live: on a street, in a park, at a concert or in a neighbourhood café. A city is a stage where people from all over the world meet, and where a mural, a shared square or a good conversation can change how we see each other.
Creative Cities for Culture of Peace is our proposal for a new theme in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. It asks cities to use design, art, music, literature and architecture as everyday tools for peace, and to learn from each other across borders. We suggest Amsterdam, home to more than 180 nationalities, as the first city.
The exhibition is where this idea becomes visible. Each time it arrives in a city, it can meet that city’s own artists, makers and residents, and give them a place to talk about what peace looks like on their streets. Over time, that can grow into a network of cities that exchange ideas and inspire each other.
3. Culture Women’s Days
In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country to give women the right to vote. Since then, country after country has followed, each on its own date, and in some places the story is still unfinished. Those dates hold a quiet map of how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
Culture Women’s Days turns that map into a calendar of days, one for each of the 193 UN member states. On each day, arts, music, stories and heritage take the lead, because culture changes how we see each other, and laws and policies often follow. A day can celebrate a woman artist, bring a community together or simply start a conversation. It is part of the Women, Culture and Peace idea: where women have a voice and a place in culture, peace has a better chance.
The exhibition is a place to discover this calendar. Visitors can find their own country’s day and share what culture means for women where they live. Everyone is welcome, including men and boys, because equality and peace are things we build together.
Peace in Everyday Life
The Red Yellow Blue Silk Road, Creative Cities for Culture of Peace and Culture Women’s Days are different doors into one idea. 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.
Behind the exhibition is RYB’s research on countries. We compare data and development in all 193 countries, connect it to the Sustainable Development Goals, and look at what countries can learn from each other and which issues deserve more attention. If a story in the exhibition makes you curious about a country, you can find out more here, or explore the data behind it.
Peace also needs resources. In Finance we follow the money behind global development, for example how countries support each other through development aid. It shows that development is something we share, and that culture and peace need their place in the budgets that decide what gets done.
Global Development
RYB is a platform for research on global development. We look at how countries are doing, compare what works, and highlight issues that need attention. Every community has something to learn and something to teach, so each of the 193 UN member states has its own country profile.
Our special focus is peacebuilding through arts and culture. Governments are moving in the same direction. At MONDIACULT 2025, UNESCO’s world conference on culture, many countries called for culture to have its own place in the global development agenda that follows 2030, the target year of today’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. RYB follows this closely and supports a new culture goal, informally called SDG 18.
This exhibition is a first introduction to that work. It presents three projects and goes deeper into one of them, the Red Yellow Blue Silk Road. If a story makes you curious, the website is the place to continue.
Art Has No Borders
Art is often an expression of freedom. It is universal, and it knows no borders. In recent years, people in major cities around the world have taken to the streets to ask for peace and to speak up about social issues. How can that energy find its way into art and exhibitions, so it can be seen, shared and talked about?
That is the question behind the Cosmology of Peace. We start by inviting several artists, designers and creatives to join the first exhibition. Over time, we also welcome innovators, cultural leaders and organisations who want to take part. Together, we can try out new ideas, learn from different regions and see what art can do for living together in peace. Visitors are part of it too: your ideas help shape what the exhibition becomes.
Edited by Frank Verspoor, editor-in-chief of RYB Global Development and Europa Regina, and artist and curator of the Red Yellow Blue Silk Road.
Last updated: 10 October 2026