Beyond Conflict: Democracy and Unpacking the Causes of Exclusion

In these final days before the presidential election, evidence of civic turbulence, civic divide, and challenges to democracy continues to mount. Tonight, join thought leaders from the arts, neuroscience, and diplomacy to learn more about how we experience conflict and strategies for overcoming seemingly insurmountable difference. Produced in collaboration with Beyond Conflict, this event features global leaders Monica McWilliams and José Maria Argueta who have navigated conflict globally and, in doing so, learned the power of and strategies for sitting with difference. They will be joined by Bay Area artist Lava Thomas. In September 2024, the city of San Francisco unveiled Thomas’s Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman, a monument to Dr. Maya Angelou, her first public artwork and the first monument honoring a Black woman in San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection. Together, the speakers will offer perspective on the arts as a tool for expanding empathy for others and prompting repair across divergent communities.

About the Speakers

José Maria Argueta was the Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the Organization of American States (OAS). In Guatemala, Argueta oversaw and calibrated the ongoing Guatemalan Peace Process and managed relations with the U.S., European Union, Taiwan, and other Central American countries during his tenure in government. Argueta also co-authored and implemented both the widely recognized ESTNA Methodology, a conflict resolution method that was instrumental in the peace processes of Guatemala and El Salvador, and the “Crisis Committee,” designed to institutionalize the presidential decision-making process. As ambassador to Japan, Argueta co-authored the Central America-Japan Initiative, which resulted in the 2005 “Tokyo Declaration,” and as ambassador to Peru, he helped negotiate the release of hostages at the Japanese Embassy in 1996.

Monica McWilliams is Emeritus Professor at Ulster University’s Transitional Justice Institute. Monica was the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission from 2005–11 and responsible for delivering the advice on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

Her published work focuses on domestic violence, human security, and the role of women in peace processes. She is the recipient of two honorary doctorates and a special Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

Tim Phillips is a pioneer in the field of conflict resolution and reconciliation and founder of Beyond Conflict, a global initiative that is internationally recognized for contributions to the field of transitional justice in post-communist Europe and South Africa. Under Phillips’ leadership, Beyond Conflict launched a partnership with several leading universities to conduct cutting-edge research on the relationship between brain and behavioral science and social conflict, including “America’s Divided Mind: Understanding the Psychology that Divides Us” and “Renewing American Democracy: Navigating a Changing Country.” Phillips serves on the board of the Frameworks Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. He received an Honorary Degree from Suffolk University in 2018.

Lava Thomas is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is grounded in acts of reverence, memorialization, and commemoration. Thomas’s work is held in museum collections nationwide, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Studio Museum in Harlem, SFMOMA, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and the United States Consulate General in Johannesburg, South Africa. Among her awards are a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters and Sculptors, an American Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, a San Francisco Artadia Award, and a Lucas Artists Fellowship. She serves on CCA’s Presidential Advisory Committee. Thomas is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

About Beyond Conflict

For 30 years, Beyond Conflict has created powerful and innovative frameworks to open pathways for progress in peace talks, transitions to democracy, and national reconciliation in the aftermath of division and violence in over 75 countries. Their powerful methodology of shared experience is grounded in two core principles: that people can learn from each other and that people can change. They have partnered with cognitive and behavioral scientists to bring forward a new framework at the intersection of behavioral sciences and real-world experience. Their goal is to apply brain science to design and promote new tools that reduce conflict, increase tolerance, and facilitate positive social change in the United States and abroad.
 

Support for Public Programs and Artist Talks at SFMOMA is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series.