Creating in a World on Fire: Art, Imagination, and Peacebuilding

About the Event

We're living through a time of deep rupture. Conflicts are multiplying, institutions are under strain, and polarisation is growing. How do we create when everything feels like it's breaking apart? What is the role of arts and the creative process?

As scholar John Paul Lederach has written, peacebuilding is not merely technical - it is imaginative, human, and deeply creative. Lederach argues that lasting peace requires what he calls the "moral imagination": the capacity to imagine a shared future even in the midst of violence and division and to build relationships across the very lines that divide us. Geneva, a global hub for peace, is uniquely placed to explore this question. 

Initiatives like Caux Arts and Peace Encounters and the Geneva Peace Forum point to a growing recognition that artistic process belongs at the heart of building peace, not on its periphery. Join us for a live conversation with two guests working at this intersection, exploring what it actually means to keep creating - and connecting - in a fractured world.

Recorded in front of an intimate audience, the conversation will later be shared more widely as an episode of the Hummingbird Collective, a podcast exploring how people find the courage to create and rebuild in a world on fire, co-produced by the Caux Foundation.

Discover the Podcast

The Hummingbird Collective podcast is a new podcast series, launched in spring 2026, dedicated to nurturing agency and belonging in a complex world. Learn more.

Moderator

SARAH NOBLE, Head of Global Engagement, Creative Peacebuilding and Inner Development, Caux Foundation

Sarah Noble is a Canadian peace advocate and storyteller based in Geneva, Switzerland. She serves as Head of Global Engagement, Creative Peacebuilding & Inner Development at the Caux Foundation, where she leads programs at the intersection of arts, narrative, and inner transformation, including the Caux Forums. She hosts the Hummingbird Collective Podcast, exploring how people find the courage to create and rebuild in a world on fire, co-produced by the Caux Foundation and supported by UNESCO's Intercultural Leadership Programme (2025–2026). She is also the Curator and co-founder of PeaceTalks at Interpeace, a global platform dedicated to amplifying diverse voices for peace. Since its creation, it has grown into 28 events across 9 countries, with 8,500+ attendees and 200+ speakers — from elementary school students to a former UN Secretary-General.

With more than 20 years of experience in strategic communications, fundraising, and partnerships in peacebuilding and non-profit media, Sarah is passionate about the power of storytelling as a tool for healing and social transformation. She previously served as Director of External Relations at The New Humanitarian, where she led the organization's rebrand from IRIN News, repositioning one of the world's leading humanitarian journalism outlets for long-term impact. In her TEDx talk, Storytelling is Our Real-Life Superpower, she explores how narratives can inspire change and shape a more hopeful future. Building on this message, her second TEDx talk, The Power of Inner Reflection for a Better Future, delves into the power of inner reflection as a foundation for creating a better world. She holds an MA in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a BA in Political Studies and Economics from Queen's University, and is an alumna and past president of the Geneva Hub of the Global Shapers.

Speaker

SOFIA YEGANEH, Artist

Working in mediums of embroidery, collage and painting, Sofia Yeganeh’s practice is defined by expressive and instinctive characteristics as she deals with personal themes based around identity, human nature and body, and the natural world. The natural form is a running thread in her oeuvre, particularly the female body and the way in which it is often depicted idealistically in collective imagination and contemporary culture. In this series, Yeganeh uses thermal images to explore the emotional and energetic connections between humans. Specifically, the work engages with the intangible, physiological interactions between individuals which emerge in the process of forming love for someone. 

“Love is one of the many components that nurture human attachment. My thermal photographs capture the energy, body heat and inner reaction that remains invisible to the human eye but which we perceive with our senses. Even in the absence of the person, the emotional bond you feel is ever-present.” Developing a mixed media process, Yeganeh layers, or translates images - taken during a state of emotion of a person with whom the artist is deeply connected - with paint and hand stitched embroidery. In these translations, dynamic lines are sewn over the photographs printed onto canvas to emphasize the multi-layered, energetic interrelatedness between beings. 

Sofia Yeganeh (British-Iranian) was born in 1996 in London, UK, where she lives and works. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons Fine Arts, New York, USA. Her exhibitions include: Interaction, GOWEN, Geneva, CH (2025); Merging boundaries, Zaal Gallery, Toronto, CA (2024); Salutation, GOWEN, Geneva, CH (2024); Connect #3, Maki Gallery, Tokyo, JP (2024); The Flow, Dastan Gallery, Teheran, IRN (2024); Art Fair Tokyo with Maki Gallery, Tokyo, JP (2024); Next, GOWEN, Geneva, CH (2023); Revival I - XVIIIe Siècle, co-curated by Laura Gowen and Rachel Cole, GOWEN, Geneva, CH (2023); Lux Feminae, The Light of Woman, Queens, New York (2022) and Visual Unpredictability, Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, USA (2021). Sofia has been represented by GOWEN since 2023.

JOIN US AND REGISTER HERE