Humanizing War?
IKRK & Musée Rath Geneva

150 years ago the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was established to provide humanitarian help for people affected by conflict and armed violence and to promote the laws that protect victims of war.
Geneva's Musée Rath is putting on a temporary exhibition "Humanizing War? ICRC - 15 years of humanitarian action" to commemorate the founding of the ICRC. The comprehensive exhibition addresses the history and development of the ICRC in thirty stations and visitors are brought face to face with the day-to-day reality of the work done by the ICRC delegates.

Tweaklab was commissioned to implement the complete media planning, programming and mounting of media technical installations. Original videos from the ICRC's archives and from inventories of Ina.fr and of French television were edited in our digital laboratories and optimised and adapted for use on various touch screen stations and monitors. At the touch screen stations the visitors can choose between English and French versions.
Especially impressive is the video station "Reunion de familie", which shows touching amateur films about the reunification of people with their dispersed family members. A touch screen next to it leads onto the ICRC "restoring family links"-page. Also the synchronised 10-channel video projection with corresponding stereophonic sound "150 ans de violence, 150 ans de présence" is most impressive. The installation "Deadly Prison" combines room, photography and video. When the visitors come down the stairs they face a photo and a spyhole. Through this peephole they can watch the video "Deadly Prison".
The new film by Romain Girard, in which five ICRC delegates tell stories about their everyday work, is synchronised as a 3-channel video installation and displayed on two semi-circular arrangements. The videos were dewarped and adjusted to precisely fit on the screen.
The exhibition was organized by a partnership of Geneva's art and history museum, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Caen Memorial, in cooperation with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

Exhibition concept: Bertrand Mazeirat, head of the exhibition department at Geneva's art and history museums; Daniel Palmieri, historical research officer at the ICRC; Iris Meierhans, head of the ICRC's project on 150 years of humanitarian action; Stéphane Grimaldi, director of the Caen Memorial
Exhibition design: Catnuss, Cathérine Nussbaumer

Duration of the exhibition: 30.04.–20.07.2014