Each forum honors and focuses on the work of the previous Nobel Prize laureate; this year the spotlight is on 2008 Nobel Peace laureate, Martti Ahtisaari, international peace negotiator and former president of Finland. He shares a particular connection with Augsburg as he considers the most satisfying work of his career to have been the 13 years he spent as the UN diplomat leading the negotiations for the independence of Namibia.

The theme of this year’s forum, “Striving for Peace: A Question of Will,” comes from Ahtisaari’s Nobel lecture, in which he says, “All conflicts can be resolved. War and conflicts are not inevitable. They are caused by human beings, Peace is a question of will.”

Speakers, panels, seminars, and two movies will provide many perspectives on peace—interfaith dialogue, women’s activism, democracy-building, lessons learned from Namibia’s independence, and many more. In addition, the forum features art exhibits, music performances from the Dustin Thomas Band and Marimba Africa, and an International Peace Fair.

The forum opens Friday with a ceremony featuring Augsburg students in choreographed aerial dance and a commissioned choral work from Finland by the Augsburg Choir. President Ahtisaari will follow with his keynote address.

The second plenary session on Saturday morning features Ahtisaari and Kjell Magne Bondevik, former prime minister of Norway and president of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights.

On Saturday afternoon, Liberian women’s movement leader Leymah Gbowee will close the forum with a call to action, talking about her work in bringing together women of all faiths as an effective political force to demand an end to violence. The award-winning documentary film about Gbowee and this movement, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, will be shown.

Another film to be shown in its Twin Cities premiere, Ana’s Playground, was filmed in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood with technical set assistance from Augsburg students. Its short plot succinctly portrays the effects of war on children, earning the film numerous festival awards and qualification for Oscar consideration in 2011.

Registration for the Forum is free for all Augsburg students, faculty, and staff. Go to the for all program and registration information. Check back for more stories about the forum’s program, speakers, and activities. The Forum is sponsored by five Norwegian Lutheran colleges—Augsburg, Augustana, Concordia, Luther, and St. Olaf—with generous funding from the Norwegian Nobel Institute.

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This fall, the students in robert tom’s introduction to sculpture class worked to construct a fountain for the set of Ana’s Playground, a not-for-profit film about children in armed conflict. Written and directed by Eric D. Howell, “The film is intended to expose new audiences to the fact that children are being used as tools of war around the world.” (filmmakers blog)

Midway through the fall semester, tom was connected with Howell and the film’s producer through Mary Laurel True of Augsburg’s Center for Service, Work, and Learning. She had learned that the film would be shot in Cedar-Riverside and wanted to find ways for Augsburg students to be involved in the project.

Tim Bekke, Erica Malloy, Katy Lawson, Ryan Thomas, and Eric Reardon [above L to R] took Howell’s instructions: 12′ long, 6′ tall, needs to be viewed/filmed from 360 degrees, iconic male form look like he is doing a backward dive, arms extended, panels need to portray a “dissection” idea or stack of slabs. Each of the students made sketches and brought their ideas together to create the final piece. “We came up with the crescent idea to make the plates work,” Thomas said. “In the sketch, they were just floating in midair.”

The sculpture, which is composed of Styrofoam, wood, and steel pipe, is meant to be a once-working fountain that is now “dead.” In fact, the piece was constructed so that water could be sent through to the fingertips of “Oscar,” the back-diving figure on top of the fountain. Posted near the fountain, which is currently on display in the Oren Gateway Center lobby, students wrote, “After a long and exhausting challenge, this is our creative contribution to the war-torn children of the world…”

tom and the students were invited to the film set in November. “It was exciting,” Lawson said. “They created an environment that didn’t exist before.”

“It was hard to tell what was real and what was fake,” Thomas said. “There were lots of random materials that you wouldn’t expect.”

The students agreed that the experience of working in a professional setting was significant. “And we got out of two projects for the class because we made this,” said Molloy.

Ana’s Playground will be complete in May or June of 2009.

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