Britain is currently entering a new cycle of rearmament, expanding the reach of its nuclear capability, increasing military spending for NATO, and continuing to support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Those opposing this escalation have been met with increasing repression, through the use of counter-terror legislation, draconian sentencing of protesters and the proscription of groups engaged in direct action.
In this context, this project revisit the peace movement’s material history, trying to better understand the diversity of tactics and intersecting movements which have shaped it. We hope that this projects acts as a resource and inspiration for those struggling for a demilitarised world today. For Peace! interweaves historical strands from the workers’ movement, Women’s Liberation, anti-colonial, socialist, and anarchist movements to address questions of non-violence, class, international solidarity, and the role of liberation struggles.
There were four different component parts: a digital multimedia collection which is part of the Activist Media Project, two exhibitions at Glasgow Women’s Library and Four Corners Gallery, an online version of the exhibition and a publication.
This project was generously funded by:
Search the Collection
The For Peace! Collection started with the digitisation of material from Greenham Common in 2023, which initially included a Scanathon event. Since then, over the course of this project, the collection has grown to over 3,000 digital items associated with peace, demilitarisation and anti-war campaigns, charting materials from 1890 until the present day. This leaves a critical resource for researchers, campaigners and citizens for years to come.
We grew the collection through our collaboration with Spirit of Revolt, Four Corners/Bishopsgate Institute and Glasgow Women’s Library. It forms a key part of the three exhibitions and book.
Exhibitions
During this project we curated two exhibitions, one at Glasgow Women’s Library and one at Four Corners Gallery (London), mounted in the Spring and Summer of 2025.
The exhibitions were structured around two gestures of the peace movement. Looking inwards, we featured efforts to disarm the British state and remove US bases. Looking outwards, we showcased international networks of solidarity and highlighted the colonial legacy of global weapons infrastructure. We also presented some current campaigns to demilitarise education, to stop the arms trade and against the genocide of Palestinians.
Featuring campaigns from the last 100 years, the exhibition combines original printed materials, banners, badges, handicrafts, photos, audio interviews and video footage.
Online Exhibition
This online exhibition is based on physical exhibitions at Glasgow Women’s Library and Four Corners Gallery (London) mounted in the Spring/Summer of 2025. The material links to the For Peace! Digital Archive hosted at MayDay Rooms Archive, where you can explore the full digitised documents. The materials presented draw from archives in the MayDay Rooms, Glasgow Women’s Library, the Spirit of Revolt archive, Statewatch and Four Corners, as well personal collections of some of the movements and groups represented.
Publication
For Peace! is based on physical exhibitions at Glasgow Women’s Library and Four Corners Gallery mounted in the Spring/Summer of 2025. It offers a more capacious understanding of peace and anti-militarism, placing peace movements in Britain into the wider global struggle against imperialism—the PFLP and 1966 Tricontinental Conference alongside Peace News and Greenham Common. As you will see in the coming pages, this history is told through the material traces of these struggles: through posters, leaflets, bulletins, and newspapers—documents that were integral to action and reflect the urgency of the struggles they emerged from.