EXHIBITION
ARTISTS FOR TOMORROW
with UN75 and Google Arts & Culture
Artists for Tomorrow brings together global artists currently implementing societal innovation towards a more sustainable world. Through individual artist presentations, the United Nations honors these cultural pioneers as iconoclastic thinkers, essential for the social entrepreneurship and transformation the future requires. In their role as communicators and creative producers, these artists are reacting to global challenges, working across disciplines and collaboratively to offer poetic and captivating solutions and alternative narratives to the SDGs than those presented by scientists, politicians and the mainstream media. With a focus on innovation and impact, these artists represent the shift from discussion to implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Ahmed Mater
In Desert of Pharan, Ahmed Mater explores the sustainability and health of the city of Mecca. As a hallowed site revered by millions and a point of perpetual immigration, the city in recent years has been recast, reworked and ultimately reconfigured. The speed and breadth of transformation introduce dependent concerns regarding the city’s social mechanics and the relationship between demolition and construction.
Rashad Salim
Through engaging communities in sharing the history and skills of Iraq’s boatbuilding traditions, Ark Re-imagined regenerates local economies and creates sustainable livelihoods. With this work, artist Rashad Salim brings people together in shared cultural heritage and advances psychological health in a landscape scarred by loss and division.
Mona Chalabi
Years Stolen is the work of artist and data journalist Mona Chalabi. Her data-driven illustrations present complex systems of information for mass public consumption, promoting equality and human rights and amplifying critical health messaging in order to create greater global health awareness and influence solutions to global issues. Her recent work included visualizations about COVID-19 and communicated critical health information.
Chip Thomas
The Painted Desert is a project for the people of the Navajo Nation in Arizona led by Dr. Chip Thomas. Utilizing large-scale public sites, local and international artists are invited to create messaging around the need for improved social cohesion and health on the reservation, where life expectancy is shorter and there are high rates of COVID-19 and health issues such as obesity, diabetes and suicide compared to national averages.
Matthew Mazzotta
The Main Idea by Matthew Mazzotta is a model for working with communities suffering from disinvestment and transforming them into distinct sites for intimate, radical and meaningful exchanges. The project mobilizes communities, local government, artists, designers and architects to reshape failing downtown cores into creative and sustainable spaces for new business and social life.
Hannah Thomas
Tears of Gold presents Hannah Thomas’s portrait paintings of of Yezidi women who escaped ISIS captivity, Rohingya women who fled violence in Myanmar, and Nigerian women who survived Boko Haram and Fulani violence. Through her art Hannah gives voice to the voiceless, lionizes the isolated and prescribes dignity to the persecuted and forcibly displaced.
Ghana Think Tank
The American Riad is an art and housing justice project by Ghana Think Tank that utilizes cross-cultural exchange in order to strengthen community life in the city of Detroit, Michigan. The project was conceptualized by a think tank established in Morocco, which identified that many US problems stem from an architecture that creates social isolation.
Mel Chin
Artist Mel Chin initiated the Fundred Project to raise public awareness of and advance solutions to the devastating problem of lead poisoning. The initiative invites the public to create their own $100 bill to represent the value of a person's expression against the invisible threat of lead poisoning that undermines health, intelligence and behavior, particularly in children.
Khalid AlBaih
Khalid AlBaih is one of the most prolific political cartoonists in the world, publishing an artwork a day for the last 20 years. His work, a confluence of journalism and art, first came to prominence during the Arab Spring. Khalid champions freedom of expression around the world, commenting on subjects such as immigration, race, power, conflict and identity.
GALLERY
Matthew Mazzotta: The Main Idea
Ahmed Mater: Desert of Pharan
Rashad Salim: Ark Re-imagined
Chip Thomas: The Painted Desert
Mona Chalabi: Years Stolen
Ghana Think Tank: The American Riad
People of America, Initiated by Mel Chin: Fundred Project
Hannah Thomas: Tears of Gold
Khalid AlBaih: Khartoon!