In 2004, some of the world’s most respected artists from 30 countries were invited by the Committee of 100 for Tibet and The Dalai Lama Foundation to consider the Dalai Lama. Their only instruction was to create a work of art inspired by his life and principles. The result was The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, a collective tapestry resonating with the Dalai Lama's vision and values.


A traveling exhibition of these works is being shown in major museums around the world. The exhibition includes thought-provoking works from eighty-eight innovative artists, spanning photography, painting, textiles, animation, sculpture, video, and installation pieces. Eighty-eight ways to think about, talk about, and cultivate peace.


In June 2006, The Missing Peace exhibition was launched at the Fowler Museum of UCLA in Los Angeles where it garnered “Best Museum Exhibit of 2006” from the Ventura County Times. It then travelled on to the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. Each venue tallied record attendance. Over the coming years, we expect the exhibition to touch millions of people, call them to positive action and help raise the visibility of the Tibetan issue in a global humanitarian context.


The educational programs created by The Dalai Lama Foundation and The Missing Peace companion book have extended our reach into schools, libraries and homes. The Missing Peace website provides you with a good introduction including a virtual tour of the exhibition as installed at the Fowler Museum. We hope you will be able to join us at an upcoming exhibition!


Status and Plans


Since the launch of The Missing Peace exhibition in 2006, nearly 500,000 people have come into contact with the project. In addition to the venues named above, the show has been hosted by the Emory University Visual Arts Center in Atlanta, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Daikanyama Gallery in Tokyo, Fondacion Canal Madrid, the Frost Museum in Miami, and is currently on view at the National Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu, Romania. Upcoming is the Nobel Museum, Stockholm (October 9 to January 9, 2011) and the last stop on the tour will be held at the San Antonio Museum of Art from March 12 to July 31, 2011. As intended, the generously donated artworks will afterwards be sold for the benefit of the peace initiatives of the C100 and The Dalai Lama Foundation.


In September, 2009, The Missing Peace organized a visit of the Dalai Lama to Memphis where he received the National Civil Rights Museum Award and gave a public talk on "Developing Peace and Harmony". Memphians were overjoyed to have him in their city.  


Twelve sets of The Missing Peace in a Box (TMPB), a portable exhibition of fourteen beautiful, large-sized prints of TMP artwork together with the project's educational programs, are now in Nigeria, Kalmykia Russia, Belize, India and numerous cities in the U.S. where there are parallel shows occurring in schools, community and peace centers, and prisons. Receptivity to TMPB is very high and expansion of the contents, including a separate website, is underway.


Over 5,000 people have taken the virtual tour of  the exhibition. Hundreds of teachers, students and parents have downloaded the educational poster activities and curricula designed for middle school and high school students. The Missing Peace website also includes recent press reviews and a list of the project's Compassion in Action awardees. This award is given to persons or organizations that exemplify the spirit of compassionate action in the communities where The Missing Peace exhibition has been shown.


Visit The Missing Peace website for the latest information.



Other activities

The Missing Peace Project