In 2003, I showed the poster at an international congress of design among the other work I had done that year. When I projected the dove, the 500 participants burst out in a one-minute standing ovation. I was so emotional that I could not finish my presentation. Ivan Chermeyeff, one of the speakers, said: "You cannot use this idea in Italy only. It belongs to the world."
The following month I showed the poster to the United Nations, and Shashi Tharoor, undersecretary for Kofi Annan, immediately commissioned the use of the Dove design for the 60th anniversary celebration of the United Nations. It has since gone into all of their museum bookshops, and was made into stamps that allow the dove to fly around the world in the name of peace.
I believe that if everybody can reach an interior peace, based on knowledge and culture, with predisposition to the dialogue and understanding the others, it would be possible to avoid extreme positions of fanaticism. World peace could be more attainable. It is essential to integrate reason and emotions, intuition and experience, our need of self affirmation and the contribute to societies' development over the globe.
