2020 was like no other year we know. It was frightening, challenging, and overwhelming, but it was also uplifting, exhilarating and unifying, pushing us into new waters and territories. During this new stage, our community of artists and activists grew and so did our campaigns and actions. And even though we were confined to the walls of our very own homes for a greater part of the year, we felt that we travelled the world, working and carrying out meaningful initiatives in places from Cairo to New York City, and from Berlin to Seoul.
See our trends and highlights from last last year.
SPRING OF HOPE
Illustrations from our Spring of Hope campaign.
The pandemic upended our day-to-day personal and work lives. So to counter feelings of despair and anxiety, we launched Spring of Hope, our global open art campaign spreading hope. Hundreds of artists and creatives took part with powerful and uplifting illustrations, licensed under Creative Commons, that are free to print and share.
BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT
Protest posters from our 12 Black artists, 24 protest posters campaign.
2020 protests on anti-Black racism and police brutality swept the United States and beyond. Our team supported the BLM movement and amplified important voices and messages through a number of art initiatives:
12 BLACK ARTISTS | 24 PROTEST POSTERS: We collaborated with 12 Black typographers and lettering artists to create and release an open pack of 24 protest posters – all free to print and share, and ready to be unleashed into action. The posters made it to the March on Washington in August and were even projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. Read more about our impact here.
POSTCARDS FROM FOREVER | For Postcards from Forever, our postcard writing campaign, we worked with prominent American photographers past and present in creating a powerful set of postcards that highlight the timelessness and perpetuity of anti-Black racism and police brutality in the U.S., while also creating a space where people can call on their legislators to work towards a more accountable and equitable future.
SURVIVING BLACKNESS | We teamed up with Lee Mokobe – an award-winning Black trans slam poet – on Surviving Blackness, a poem on systemic racism towards Black people. Injustice is not to be navigated, but to be fought. Watch our animated video.
ARTISTS FOR COUNTDOWN
Featured artworks from our collaboration with TED Countdown.
Art can change climate change. In October 2020, we launched our global art action in collaboration with Countdown – TED’s global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. We worked with a group of prominent TED Fellows artists to create ten public artworks in ten cities around the world - from Cairo to NYC and from Vancouver to Dallas, to bring the issue of climate change closer to home. Fine Acts curated and produced the collection. See all the artworks.
THEGREATS.CO
In 2020, we revealed TheGreats.co, our new and unique platform for free socially engaged illustrations. It is the absolute go-to place for socially-engaged visual content - whether you want to use it, or donate it. Works (already over 500 of them) are published under a specific Creative Commons licence that allows free noncommercial use and adaptation, given the appropriate credit.
HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Illustrations from our Reimagining Human Rights campaign.
According to Amnesty International, 2020 has brought human rights to the fore of public debate. However, to be truly effective, we need to redefine how we speak about human rights. The future of human rights must be hopeful. When we only show the abuses, people start to believe that we live in a world of crisis with no alternative. Browse some of the campaigns we launched this year that tackle human rights’ image as a whole, or focus on specific issues.
REIMAGINING HUMAN RIGHTS | We launched Reimagining Human Rights, our campaign in partnership with hope-based comms, to challenge creatives everywhere on reimagining how we envision human rights. We were blown away by a wave of amazing submissions. Hundreds of organizations and activists used these visuals for Human Rights Day (Dec 10), and beyond.
VAGINA MATTERS | We released Vagina Matters, our illustrated sex education book for girls, in October. The book, initially the target of a smear campaign launched by a far-right political party in government, has been read over 75,000 times on our website, and reached women and girls all across Bulgaria. It will also be launched in the UK in 2021 in partnership with Your Daye and Brook.
LOVE SPEECH | A popular study states that looking into a stranger’s eyes for four minutes can bring you closer. Dozens of social experiments over the years have proven this claim. We decided to test it too - but with a twist. Watch our video that became instantly viral in social media, and see what happens when people meet and hear the stories of LGBT people, Roma people and POC.
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A heartfelt thank you to all our donors and patrons for making this work possible.
