Yelyzaveta (Lisa) Glybchenko is a university student. She is originally from Ukraine, but now she studies at the American University in Bulgaria. She has been drawing and painting since childhood, and gradually learned design while at the university. Her project, Life of Colors: Color Up Peace is a masterpiece that uses Art for Peace building.
Here in this mini-interview, Yelyzaveta Glybchenko shares the beautiful mission behind her Art-Peace building project.
“I study International Relations and Peace building, but I have always wanted to incorporate my greatest passion – art – into the work of building peace in communities shaken by violent conflicts, injustice, and prejudice.”
What is peace for you? It was another day of peace manifestations in the buffer zone between Cyprus and the Turkish…
Posted by Life of Colors: Color Up Peace on Saturday, August 5, 2017
On coming up with the Idea
Last October I came up with the idea for my project Life of Colors: Color Up Peace. This project invites people from all over the world to submit photos, which I later turn into coloring pages for others to color. The photos can feature anything that is close to the heart of the photographer and that represents peace for them: Color Up Peace received pictures of conflict zones, unique projects within the featured countries, landscapes, and people.
The idea behind this is to break the political stereotypes about countries shaken by conflict – that they are always grey, lifeless, colorless, sandy, and dusty. On the contrary, even war can be the time of the brightest life and cultural revival. I believe it is important to remember that always there are people all over the globe looking for meaning, color, and joy to fill their life with positivity. This way, filling out a coloring page is giving hope to those living in conflict zones, it is seeing beyond the media stereotypes, and it is reaching out to build a true connection between people of different social and cultural backgrounds. I have discovered that these coloring pages create a special artistic platform for understanding that transcends language barriers, state borders, and political presupposition.
Life of Colors just received this picture of a coloring page filled out by one of our followers:) Such a beauty! The…
Posted by Life of Colors: Color Up Peace on Saturday, August 26, 2017
Cultural identities sharpen in war. Some countries are portrayed by the media to be always grey and lifeless, especially…
Posted by Life of Colors: Color Up Peace on Sunday, June 18, 2017
On the great impact Color Up Peace has made so far
It helps people break stereotypes and add color to everything in life. So far, Color Up Peace has photos and coloring pages from Georgia, Jordan, Ukraine, Turkey, Lithuania, Denmark, Cyprus, Moldova, USA, and I would be happy to turn more photos into coloring pages.
For now, the coloring pages are freely downloadable from the Color Up Peace Facebook page at this link, and the project is always open for new photo submissions. You do not have to be a professional photographer or have a good camera, to submit your picture. Any quality works just fine for the transformation into a coloring page. I find it a little paradoxical that Color Up Peace allows you to shoot for peace – photo-shoot. I wish every shot, which was ever fired in the world, was, in fact, a shot of a camera, and not of a weapon.
Looking forward to the more awesome impact that Color Up Peace will make. 
