Written by Mateo Rodríguez, a Mines Action Canada volunteer for International Artist Day. 

I don't know how we did it, but we barely escaped the jaws of the 20th century, and the human project, standing on the smoldering ruins of its own civilization, asks itself: When did we decide it was a good idea to gather in an open field to murder each other? That's why the traumatized survivors of the two largest wars in human history have constantly shown their rejection towards war and in favour of disarmament. To understand the effect art has in searching for peace, we can divide these effects into different mechanisms. 

1. Godzilla in Nagasaki:

The giant lizard that spits laser rays and torments Japan is a clear result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the fear and forever threat that the events of the 6th and 9th of August of 1945 are as big as the destruction was. Godzilla was created 9 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Japanese studio Toho, the so called “King of the Monsters” was inspired by a bigger threat to humanity when Tomoyuki Tanaka started considering “what if a nuclear explosion awoke a prehistoric sea monster and morphed it into a larger beast?” This is the first idea that finally led to the creation of the most famous kaiju. This giant lizard works wonders to represent the nuclear threat as this problem is not only present in the detonation of a bomb but it is also an invisible one after the detonation. Kerry Brougher explains how Godzilla makes radiation visible and helps the public to process the existential threat of nuclear annihilation.

Godzilla cannot attend rallies or lobby for a treaty, but its impact in the awareness about the nuclear threat is profound and lasting. Making a huge lizard that destroys cities and eats radiation is a great help to visualize an invisible problem while it gave the Japanese both a way to express their trauma and at the same time have a symbol to condemn the constant nuclear testing in the Pacific ocean. The first media where Godzilla existed helped to connect the suffering from Japan to the arms race that took place in the Cold War meanwhile modern comics and movies carry on that initial warning: human ambitions for ultimate weapons and domination risks the awakening of a force we cannot control or fight. This is how Godzilla keeps nuclear fear alive in modern culture seeking disarmament not only as a political calculation, but a moral duty present in the collective imagination. 

2. Guernica’s example:

Picasso’s Guernica (1937) is perhaps the world's most famous anti-war painting and a quintessential example of art backing disarmament. The mural was created in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, when German Condor Legion aircraft, fighting for the Nationalist rebels in the Spanish Civil War, carpet-bombed the defenseless civilian population over several hours. Picasso, who had been commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition, scrapped his initial plans upon hearing the news and produced the painting in just over three weeks.

Guernica is rendered exclusively in a black and white scale — a deliberate choice by Picasso, who believed that brighter colors might distract viewers from the agony of the scene. The painting depicts a chaotic scene of suffering: a speared horse straddles a shattered human figure holding a broken sword; a bull stands on the left margin; anguished women scream toward the sky; a mother cradles a dead child; and a figure falls from a burning building. Notably, the painting contains no depictions of an aggressor — a feature that has puzzled interpreters but ultimately lends the work its universal quality. The political impact of Guernica was immediate and lasting. The painting was used by the Republican government as a form of political public relations, "publicizing atrocity and legitimizing outrage" against the Nationalists. After the fall of the Republic, Picasso refused to allow the painting to go to Spain until democracy was restored, keeping it at the Museum of Modern Art in New York until 1981. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists notes, Guernica became a warning not only about the Spanish Civil War but also about the escalating civilian casualties of modern warfare that would follow — the Blitz, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Picasso himself declared: "Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It's an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy".

3. Holden’s world and words:

Cormac McCarthy's wonderful novel Blood Meridian. There we meet Judge Holden. The judge is the embodiment of the most violent aspects of American culture.

A physical marvel, over two meters tall and weighing 150 kilos, albino and hairless, with the face, hands, and feet of a child. The judge tells us:

“It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well, ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade waiting for the ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way … Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stakes because they inherit the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all … War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.”

With this terrifying voice, the author exposes the logic of those who advocate for perpetual conflict, leaving readers to recoil from its implications rather than embrace them. The novel also helps to push the idea of how more weapons doesn’t mean more security as almost every character has access to a gun but none of them are safe at any time since they mostly think that violence is a solution.

This novel works wonders in stripping away the nationalist pride and glory by just showing its most visceral characteristics as an ugly, sense-less and self consuming act which undermines the mindset of the arms race. Cormac McCarthy also challenges the idea that more weapons means more safety by showing how those who worship war will never lay down their tools willingly. Blood Meridian works as a dark mirror: understanding the judge’s logic is the first step towards rejecting it.

Art and war have always been connected, from Godzilla’s way of showing the invisible nuclear threat to Guernica’s monochromatic chaos stripping war of any glory and Holden with his terrifying sermon on war as an eternal, all-consuming game, exposes its self-destructive logic so that readers recoil from it. All the efforts of art against war are violent and brutal, depict death and show destruction. How can this help us to turn away from our worst tradition? Well, as I see it, the first step is recognizing that we have a problem. In most places we never see the guns, we can’t even imagine how terrifying it is to suffer war, we just hear the numbers and the news. Art is not only important to help show a glimpse of how horrible we can be, just so we can do better even if we feel it doesn’t matter or we think our actions are too small. But, it can also help us see how the future can be wonderful as it is shown in the solarpunk artistic movement where humanity is able to find a balance with nature for a better cohabitance.

So when we put art together with activism they can do all that—make the invisible visible, strip war of its false glory, and hold up a mirror to our own worst impulses—then why do we so often treat it as an afterthought? Governments love to talk about disarmament in Geneva or at the UN, they sign pieces of paper and shake hands, but they rarely think about what it takes to actually move people. And that’s where partnerships between arts and disarmament come into play as a crucial point, not as charity or cultural window‑dressing, but as a practical piece of the peace puzzle. 

When a state puts money behind an activist, a filmmaker, a muralist, or a writer who dares to look at war without flinching, they are doing something more than just writing a cheque—they are betting that a citizen who has seen Guernica, or sat through the original Godzilla, or felt the chill of Judge Holden’s words, will think twice before cheering for the next arms deal. It’s not about propaganda; it’s about giving trauma a shape and giving memory a voice, so that the next generation doesn't have to learn the hard way. And sure, maybe a painting or a movie won't stop a missile on its own—I know that. But neither will a treaty if nobody back home really cares. The truth is, we don't need more sermons from politicians; we need more stories that haunt us just enough to make us choose differently. And that takes resources, and courage, and a government willing to admit that culture matters more than a parade of tanks.

Because in the end, disarmament isn't just about counting warheads—it's about changing the way we see the world.