A single T-shirt has the power to spread peace. This is the idea behind the PEACE FOR ALL charity t-shirt initiative launched by UNIQLO, which in 2024, celebrates two years and over 1.5 billion yen (approx. US$10 million) raised to date. All profits from sales of PEACE FOR ALL T-shirts are donated to three international humanitarian organizations, UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency), Save the Children, and Plan International. Now, UNIQLO PEACE FOR ALL is partnering with internationally renowned photographic cooperative Magnum Photos to launch a global photography exhibition. The exhibition features a curated collection of striking, joyful, profound photographs from Magnum photographers Cristina de Middel, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, and Olivia Arthur, who traveled to Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Romania to capture moments of PEACE FOR ALL funded activities from their own perspectives. The photographs shine a light on everyday lives of real people who are the beneficiaries of funds raised through the PEACE FOR ALL initiative. The exhibition powerfully illustrates how each partner makes good use of funds raised through the initiative.
President of Magnum Photos since 2022, Cristina de Middel visited the Plan International, our donation recipient, is operation in Vietnam, where the organization is working toward realizing a world in which young women are protected from damaging customs like child marriage and can freely choose the lives they want to live. Through her work, Cristina de Middel hopes to inspire the next generation to see that if they want change badly enough, they will see the world change before them. Meeting the children of Vietnam, she says that she could feel how excited these young people are for the future, which she found thrilling.
PLAN INTERNATIONAL
An international NGO active in more than 80 countries that is dedicated to children’s rights and build a society free from poverty or discrimination. Established in 1937, they have a longstanding focus on regional development that actively involves children, youth people and locals in the process. The aim is to ensure that children’s rights are protected, with an emphasis on helping girls and women.
Cristina de Middel investigates photography’s ambiguous relationship to truth. Blending documentary and conceptual photographic practices, she plays with reconstructions and archetypes in order to build a more layered understanding of the subjects she approaches. Working from the premise that mass media is reducing our real understanding of the world we live in, De Middel responds to an urgency to re-imagine tired aesthetic tropes and insert opinion in place of facts. De Middel was born in Spain and is based between Mexico and Brazil. She became a Magnum nominee in 2017 and Magnum President in 2022.
SELECTED PHOTOS
BEHIND THE SCENES / VIETNAM
OLIVIA ARTHURIN ROMANIA
OLIVIA ARTHUR
Documentary photographer Arthur headed to Romania, where she captured the education aid, mental healthcare, and food aid programs being organized for refugees from Ukraine by Save the Children which is our donation recipient. Imagination is a child’s greatest asset. Using her lens, she captured the kid zones set up in a Save the Children Counselling Hub so that children can be children and express themselves through play.
SAVE THE CHILDREN
Save the Children is an international NGO that works to make children’s rights to survival, development, protection and participation a reality worldwide. It was established in the UK in 1919 and is currently at work in approximately 120 countries.
Olivia Arthur is a documentary photographer known for her in-depth work examining people and their personal and cultural identities. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in institutional collections in the UK, USA, Germany and Switzerland. She is co-founder of Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in London. She became a member of Magnum Photos in 2013 and was elected as its president from 2020 to 2022.
SELECTED PHOTOS
BEHIND THE SCENES / ROMANIA
LINDOKUHLE SOBEKWAIN ETHIOPIA
LINDOKUHLE SOBEKWA
Hailing from South Africa, Sobekwa started his career photographing scenes of poverty and unemployment. For this assignment, he went to Ethiopia, where he captured the aid efforts of UNHCR which is our donation recipient. Paying witness to the everyday lives of Somali refugees in Awbare’s refugee encampment, his photos center on the themes of hope, dreams, and resilience. The rainbow featured on the T-shirts is a metaphor for hope and brighter tomorrows.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, leads international action to protect people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. UNHCR delivers life-saving assistance like shelter, food and water, helps to safeguard fundamental human rights, and develops solutions that ensure people have a safe place to call home where they can build a better future. UNHCR also works to ensure that stateless people are granted a nationality. Present in 135 countries globally, UNHCR received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981.
Born in South Africa in 1995, Lindokuhle Sobekwa came to photography in 2012 through his participation in the Of Soul and Joy Project, an educational program run in Thokoza. His early projects dealt with poverty and unemployment in the townships, while in later work Sobekwa is increasingly addressing his own life, such as his relationship with his sister, Ziyanda, who died after becoming estranged from her family. Most recently, he was announced as the recipient of the first John Kobal Fellowship, presented at Tate Modern in March 2023. Sobekwa became a Magnum nominee in 2018 and a member in 2022.
SELECTED PHOTOS
BEHIND THE SCENES / ETHIOPIA
EXHIBITION
LONDON
KING’S CROSS
9.13.2024-10.31.2024 24HOURS
Euston Rd., London N1 9AL, United Kingdom
HANOI
Postponed
NEW YORK
UNIQLO 5TH AVE
9.19.2024-10.31.2024 11:00-20:00
660 5th Avenue, New York, NY, 10103, USA
STOCKHOLM
KINGS GARDEN
9.19.2024-10.16.2024 24HOURS
Jussi Björlings allè, Stockholm, Sweden
TAIPEI
UNIQLO TAIPEI
9.20.2024-10.30.2024 Mon-Sun 11:00-22:00
1-4F, No. 200, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Da'an Dist, Taiwan
SINGAPORE
VIVO CITY
9.20.2024-10.4.2024 10:00-22:00
1 HarbourFront Walk, Singapore 098585
TOKYO
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY
9.19.2024 15:00-18:00
9.20.2024-9.22.2024 8:00-18:00
9.23.2024 8:00-16:00
5-53-70 Jingumae Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925, Japan
SEOUL
DRC HONGDAE
9.21.2024-9.25.2024 10:30-17:30
82, Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
ROME
GALLERIA ALBERTO SORDI
9.21.2024-10.11.2024 9:00-20:00
P.za Colonna, 00187, Rome, Italy
PETALING JAYA
SUNWAY UNIVERSITY
9.23.2024-9.25.2024 9:00-17:00
5, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Sunway, 47500 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
HIROSHIMA
HIROSHIMA GATE PARK
10.9.2024 12:00-18:00
10.10.2024-10.15.2024 8:00-18:00
5-25, Motomachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, 730-0011, Japan
DIGITAL
DIGITAL EXHIBITION IN OFFICIAL WEB
10.15.2024-
NEW CHARITY T-SHIRTS
CRISTINA DE MIDDEL
It is well known that creativity sits in our capacity to subvert the given order of things and the meanings we learned in our journey to adulthood. In my work, I reconnect to the absolute power that we are born with and use while we are still children. It's the same power that turns a folded piece of paper into a boat or a pencil into a rocket and I believe that looking at the world as a place you can change and modify is an essential skill to remind the next generation if we want to make a change. Working with these children in Vietnam gave me plenty of hope for what was to come and it was also a lot of fun.
The most powerful tool that children have is their imagination. So I wanted to create a space where these children could come and express themselves and play with whatever came into their heads. There was a lot of giggling and some inventive creatures and poses.
I learn so much from the people I photograph. Working with people in Aw-barre Camp, Hope, Dreams, and Resilience became a central conversation I wanted my work to represent. I wanted to play with metaphors of the rainbow that symbolize hope and promise of a better time to come, as well as a powerful quote from one of the people I worked with. The image is set in a landscape on a border that separates the Ethiopian Jijiga from the Somali border, Inhabited by Somalian refugees.
