War is over! If you want it

In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono launched their two‑year peace campaign WAR IS OVER! If you want it. They spread their global anti‑war message using the tools and logic of advertising. If war and peace are products, then a choice exists between the two. This shift—from destiny to freedom of choice—forms the starting point for the selection of works Karin Hanssen created for this exhibition.

Rather than focusing on war itself, the exhibition examines the mechanisms that make war possible. Shifting perspectives are essential here: a multitude of possibilities, colours and shades of grey are reduced to black‑and‑white oppositions through visual, rhetorical and political manipulation.

What unfolds in this exhibition is not a linear narrative, but a field of tensions. Between the individual and the mass. Between image and reality. Between revealing and concealing. By isolating images from their original context and then creating new meanings, Karin Hanssen demonstrates with striking clarity how disturbingly easy it is to push people into boxes of prejudice, categories and stereotypes.