'Living Peacefully' echoes the more colourful 'Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity' (anti-Vietnam war placard, 1969).

The attempt to eliminate war with war is, of course, nonsensical. Radically different strategies are required. The counter culture movement embodied the ideal that the route to peace was peace itself.

Simple non-participation can have an unexpectedly radical quality as illustrated in the slogan, 'Suppose they gave a war and no one came' (the title of a 1966 article in

McCall's

magazine by

Charlotte E. Keyes

, quoting the American poet

Carl Sandburg

).

'Living Peacefully' quotes visually from a button badge created to publicise a 1967 anti-Vietnam War demonstration in which the organisers planned to levitate the Pentagon, make it vibrate and turn orange. Once this had occurred, they claimed war would be over for good.

'Living Peacefully' is part of socialart.work, a mass public art project by public artist

Martin Firrell

calling for greater social justice.

It aims to create debate about power and gender, women's equality and masculinity, alternative forms of economic and social organisation, black power, and solidarity between people from different backgrounds and ethnicities.

It includes posters, publications and events supported in 2018-19 by the artist's residency with leading Out of Home media company

Clear Channel UK.