activist artists
Human rights activists come from many different backgrounds – indeed, the diversity of the human rights movement is one of its great strengths. However, artists represent one powerful, yet often overlooked, group. In ways both large and small, artists can challenge, inform and move communities toward understanding, acceptance and change. Through mediums as diverse as film, writing, theater, music, painting, poetry, dance and drawing, artists are often able to express the raw emotions that truly provoke and inspire much needed action and attention to human rights issues and crises around the world.
As part of our Global Citizenship work, the Lantos Foundation is committed to supporting, encouraging and recognizing the work of Artist Activists who tell human rights stories in ways that are unique, inspiring and significant. We accomplish this by:
Providing financial support to creative projects undertaken by Activist Artists, administered through our Frontline Fund grants. Examples of Activist Artist recipients include documentary filmmakers of Mango Girls (2013) and Missing Inaction: The Raoul Wallenberg Story (2020), as well as Women Voices Now, an organization that uses film to advance women’s and girl’s rights globally. Learn more about the Frontline Fund.
Highlighting the work of Activist Artists through public events and the Foundation’s digital channels, including social media and The Keeper podcast. Through this work, the Foundation has helped elevate Activist Artists such as Bobi Wine of Uganda, has introduced new audiences to activist art such as Christy Turlington’s 2010 film No Woman, No Cry and has featured a range of artists and their impact on human rights.
Administering the Activist Artist Scholarship, a college scholarship program that challenges high school seniors to write a compelling essay about an Activist Artist whose work inspires them or to create their own piece of activist art. Learn more about the Activist Artist Scholarship.
The documentary Mango Girls tells the story of Dharhara Village in India, where girls’ rights are addressed in a unique way – by planting mango trees each time a daughter is born in the village. The fruit of the trees goes on to pay for her education and well-being.
Bobi Wine, a Ugandan musician turned activist and politician, uses his music to call for a return to the rule of law in Uganda and to spread other important activist messages.
Aseem Trivedi, an Indian political cartoonist and activist, created the series 'A Cartoon For Every Lash' in support of Raif Badawi, an imprisoned Saudi writer and dissident. View the full gallery here.
Kizito Mihigo was a Rwandan gospel singer and songwriter who promoted messages of peace, reconciliation and nonviolence through his music. He was arrested and accused of being an anti-government conspirator. He died in police custody in February 2020.