– 27.09.2015
In 2015, the United Nations (UN) celebrates its 70th anniversary.
After the horrors of the Second World War, the international community came together to create an organisation that would guarantee peace and security, and this happened on 26 June 1945, with the signing of the Charter of the United Nations in San Francisco (USA), in which 51 countries participated.
To mark this important and auspicious occasion, the UN Department of Public Information and the Gabarron Foundation have co-organised an exhibition that allows a journey through its vast iconographic archive.
The objective of the curators, Chaim Litewski, Antonio Silva, Mark Garten and Ziad Al-Kadri, is to show the UN’s journey in a world that has changed dramatically over 70 years and to highlight some of the most important aspects of its main activities: Human Rights, Development, Humanitarian Assistance as well as Peace and Security.
The works were selected based on suggestions and contributions from UN officials, intellectuals, artists, journalists, and historians and aim to shed light on the role of the organization in the future. After 70 years, the UN brings together 193 member states and prepares a new paradigm of sustainable development for future generations.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, considers it fundamental to preserve and disseminate this legacy. About this exhibition he stressed that: “We have some 800,000 photographs and tens of thousands of hours of audio and video recordings. The history of humanity over the past seven decades would not be complete without the UN Archives. Let us be inspired by the achievements that are documented in this exhibition to do even more for our collective future.”
– 27.09.2015