Peace Festival

The eighth edition of the Peace Festival, organized by the City and Province of Brescia, in collaboration with Fondazione Brescia Musei and Amnesty International and under the high patronage of the European Parliament, will take place from Friday, Nov. 7 to Sunday, Nov. 23.
The focuses of the program areEurope and theEuropean Union.

The opening of the festival on Friday, Nov. 7, will include an opening ceremony at 5:30 p.m. in the Vanvitellian Hall of Palazzo Loggia, followed by the presentation of the "Brescia Prize for Peace 2025," and then at the Santa Giulia Museum on Via Musei 81b, with the inauguration and evening preview opening, in the presence of artists and curator, of the exhibition "Material for an Exhibition. Stories, Memories and Struggles from Palestine and the Mediterranean. Works by Haig Aivazian, Mohammed Al-Hawajri, Emily Jacir, Dina Mattar," curated by Sara Alberani.

The exhibition, promoted and organized by Fondazione Brescia Musei, highlights the role of art as a practice capable of building relationships and weaving bonds of solidarity between Mediterranean geographies and welcomes works that survived the bombing and destruction in 2023 of Eltiqa Group for Contemporary Art, a space for contemporary art in Gaza. Participating in the ideal reconstitution of this art space are two of the founders of the Eltiqa Collective ("Encounter" in Arabic), artists Mohammed Al-Hawajri and Dina Mattar; with them are Lebanese artist Haig Aivazian and Palestinian Golden Lion in Venice 2007 artist Emily Jacir. Their works give texture to memory, make visible the material, political and emotional conditions that run through every creative act.

The exhibition will be on view from Nov. 8 to Feb. 22 and 2026 and will be free to visit for the duration of the Festival (Nov. 8-23).

The program of the event consists of more than 100 events, organized by 60 different entities, which are the result of collaborations with Dòsti Festival of Religious Arts and Cultures, Umanità Migrante, Librixia, Rinascimento Culturale, Rassegna della Microeditoria Italiana, Sistema Bibliotecario Bresciano, Universities and Academies, MITA-International Museum of Antique Carpet.

All Peace Festival events are free admission, subject to availability.