/ #museums #remembrance day 

A short review of Peace: The Exhibition at the Canadian War Museum

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A few of the artifacts on display. Clockwise from top right: 45 single of "Give Peace a Chance", a tiny "Stop Star Wars" pin, a small knit peacekeeper, an education kit sent to Afghanistan, and the original Greenpeace flag.

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](http://ottawastart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/20131019_150259.jpg) I visited _ Peace: The Exhibition _ at the Canadian War Museum on the weekend.  Actually I visited twice, once on Friday night as part of an invite-only VIP event, and once the next day because I wanted to check it out in more detail and bring my daughter along too.  She’ll be talking about Remembrance Day in school over the next few weeks and I thought it might give her some added context and perspective.

The exhibition is impressive.  It’s full articles, photos and stories about peace and makes a nice counterpoint to all of the “war” on display elsewhere in the museum.  It’s a diverse look at different approaches to peace, from individual grassroots movements to international politics.

The exhibit is full of challenging contrasts.  There’s a land mine on display across from a prosthetic limb.  There are tiny peace sign pins and there’s Lester B. Pearson’s daytimer.  Peace treaties and artwork by children. A a tiny clock pulled from the rubble of Hiroshima.

There’s plenty of depth for adults and there are some thoughtful interactive elements too. My daughter made a peace pin, put a peace ribbon on the wall, did a puzzle, wrote a post-it note about how she supports peace.

It’s on until early January, 2014.  You should go!

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These tiny pins date from the 1960s and are among the earliest examples of the peace sign, according to the exhibit.
  The peace sign was created in 1958 and incoporates the semaphore signals for the letters "N" and "D",
    

  which stand for "Nuclear Disarmament".

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** ** See also: ** Ottawa Museums Guide

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