Limited 3 (+2AP) +1 Museum Print / numbered, signed
and artist certified photo print on alu dubond

Photographer: Silvia Hak-Hagir
Off-Cam & Setting: Wolfgang Nigischer
Performer: Rahman Hak-Hagir

Bertha von Suttner* (1843 – 1914), originally Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas von, was an Austrian novelist, radical pacifist, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the second to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

„Ich schrieb das Buch, um der Friedensbewegung, von deren beginnender Organisation ich erfahren hatte, einen Dienst zu leisten; auf meine Art.“ („I wrote that Book to serve the peace movement, from which I heard it was getting organized; in my own way.“)

DIE WAFFEN NIEDER (Lay Down Your Arms) – In 1905 Bertha Von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It was given to her for this novel, Die Waffen nieder! originally published in 1889, and for her work in organizing an international peace movement.

This popular novel introduced thousands of readers of her time to the arguments of pacifism. Written in an autobiographic style this book tells the story of a woman raised in a military family who becomes opposed to war and sets out to document rational arguments against the patriotic reasons nations put forward to justify their wars.

Set in the second half of the 19th century, the story begins when she is a young woman in Austria who falls in love with a young officer in the army. Suttner uses the actual European conflicts of the time as a backdrop for her heroine’s disillusionment and growing arguments against war. As the politicians of Austria, Prussia and France lead them into one senseless war after another, she relates the horrors suffered by the the people of Europe.

The main drawback of the book is that few today will have much knowledge of the political problems and figures she writes about. However, the arguments used to start wars in 19th century Europe sound just like those used by modern politicians to justify invasions like those of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Listening to her hope for find a rational way to end armed conflict …

Could it really be that all we have to do is Lay Down Our Arms?

VIDEO / MAKING OF …
OVERLOADED
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MOMS & SONS

Waidhofen a. d. Thaya / Austria
February 2015 ~

COMING SOON.