Official replicas of two Nobel peace prizes, refreshments and music performed by musicians from around the world will be part of “Art, Peace and Health,” a celebration of the Nobel peace prizes received by Harvard and Boston physicians for their work on the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Open to Boston’s medical community and the public, the celebration will be held Friday, Oct. 26, 4 – 6 p.m. at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. It will highlight the Nobel peace prizes won by the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in 1985 and 2017 and the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility (GBPSR).
The celebration will also serve as the opening of an exhibit in the Countway lobby of original poster art by Corita Kent which was presented to GSPSR in the 1980s in recognition of its work for a world without war.
Kent was a prolific artist, educator and peace activist whose life’s work was to spread her message that everyone is responsible for working towards a peaceful world. Replicas of the artwork she created as part of her partnership with GSPSR will be shown.
In addition, medical students from Central America, Africa, Europe and the United States will speak in acknowledgment of a new generation in the continuing international effort to abolish nuclear weapons.
The students will address the recently improved United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the renewed efforts of the U.S. to reduce and eliminate the danger of nuclear war as part of the Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War campaign.
Following the celebration, a workshop will be held on Saturday, Oct. 27, called “Art, Medicine and Activism: Considering Peace—Inspiration from IPPNW’s Nobel Peace Prizes and Corita Kent.” Sponsored by Countway and the HMS Arts and Humanities Initiative, the workshop will feature Boston artist and activist Ekua Holmes and former IPPNW CEO B. Lachlan Forrow, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
A symposium themed “The History, Uses and Future of the Nobel Prize,” sponsored by the Center for the History of Medicine, will be held earlier in the month on Oct. 4, 1:00 – 6:00 p.m., in the Waterhouse Room in Gordon Hall. It will also feature chamber music from members of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, which is partnering with IPPNW and GBPSR this fall.
