Dick Jewell, War & Peace

A hand raised with two fingers extended is one of the most familiar images in modern culture. It has travelled across countries, generations and political movements, carrying remarkably different meanings wherever it appears. For some it represents victory. For others it signifies peace. In parts of the world it is a gesture of celebration, while elsewhere it can be interpreted as an insult. It appears in photographs taken by tourists and teenagers, in news images of politicians and protestors, and in historical records documenting moments of war, resistance and social change. Few symbols have been used so widely or understood in so many different ways.

This unstable history forms the basis of War & Peace, a new work by Dick Jewell that draws together hundreds of examples of the gesture from across different eras, cultures and social contexts. For more than fifty years, Jewell has explored the ways images circulate through popular culture and shape our understanding of the world. His work frequently focuses on the meanings we attach to familiar signs and symbols, examining how they evolve over time as they are repeated, copied and absorbed into everyday life. What interests him is not simply what an image means, but how meaning itself is created, altered and sometimes lost.

At the centre of War & Peace is the famous V sign, first adopted during the Second World War as a symbol of Allied victory before later becoming associated with anti-war movements, peace campaigns and youth culture. As the image travelled around the world it acquired new interpretations. In Japan and across East Asia it became a popular photographic pose associated with happiness and playfulness. In Britain, depending on which way the hand is turned, it can communicate something altogether different. The same gesture has therefore come to represent both conflict and reconciliation, aggression and optimism, seriousness and humour.

Jewell brings these contradictory histories together in a vast visual collage that refuses to settle on a single interpretation. Political leaders stand alongside celebrities, activists alongside ordinary members of the public. Historical photographs sit beside contemporary images. The gesture repeats again and again until it becomes difficult to distinguish one meaning from another. What emerges is not a definitive statement about war or peace, but a portrait of how symbols move through culture and how their meanings are constantly being reshaped by those who use them.

The exhibition launches on the anniversary of Winston Churchill’s first public use of the V for Victory sign in July 1941, a moment that helped establish the gesture as one of the defining symbols of the twentieth century. More than eighty years later, its meaning remains unresolved. In a world increasingly shaped by images that travel instantly across borders and platforms, WAR & PEACE asks what happens when a symbol becomes so widely shared that it belongs to everyone and no one at the same time.

Extending beyond the screen itself, the project invites audiences to participate by photographing themselves with the gesture and sharing their images online. In doing so, they become part of the work and contribute to the ongoing life of the symbol. Each new photograph adds another layer to its history and another interpretation to its meaning. The gesture continues its journey, changing slightly with every repetition.

Rather than offering answers, War & Peace invites us to look more closely at the images that surround us every day. It reminds us that even the simplest gestures carry histories, contradictions and stories that are far more complex than they first appear.

Dick Jewell is a British artist, filmmaker, printmaker and image-maker whose practice has explored the power of visual culture for more than five decades. Working across collage, photography, film, publishing and installation, he is renowned for transforming found images into complex visual narratives that reveal how meaning is constructed, circulated and absorbed through contemporary life.

Emerging from the Royal College of Art in the late 1970s, Jewell developed a distinctive approach to image-making that anticipated many of today’s conversations around remix culture, media literacy and the circulation of images. His work draws connections between popular culture, politics, fashion, advertising and collective memory, uncovering the hidden relationships that shape how we see ourselves and the world around us. Alongside his artistic practice, he has worked extensively as a filmmaker, directing documentaries, music videos and films exploring artists, dance and club culture.

In 2023, Jewell collaborated with CIRCA on WAR & PEACE, a participatory public commission that transformed one of the most recognisable gestures in modern history into a global conversation about symbolism, communication and collective meaning. Appearing across public screens in London, Berlin, Milan and Seoul, the work invited audiences to become participants by recreating and reinterpreting the iconic V-sign, extending Jewell’s long-standing fascination with the ways images evolve as they move through different cultures, contexts and generations.

Throughout his career, Jewell’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, the Hayward Gallery, Tate Liverpool, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Venice Biennale. Combining the eye of an archivist with the instincts of a storyteller, he remains a singular figure whose work continues to reveal the extraordinary complexity hidden within everyday images.