Introducing 2023’s Artist Changemakers
Global Fund for Women welcomes nine new Artist Changemakers to our creative community of artists and activists making art at the forefront of feminist movements everywhere. Our 2023 cohort of artists are awarded a one-time unrestricted grant to support their work, struggles, aspirations, and lives as critical and creative movement builders.
“The opportunity to create intuitively without the pressure of monetization is a beautiful gift for an artist. My work usually involves groups of people, collaborators, and support from my community. This award will allow me to continue to create work with them, knowing that my material needs are met and that I have the ability to redistribute some of this funding to those I work with.”Multi-disciplinary artist, Trinidad & Tobago
We feel immense pride in supporting these artists as part of our commitment to feminist imagination and movements across the globe. The 2023 Artist Changemakers work in mediums that include tattooing, poetry, rap, film, performance, and painting, with pieces that range from virtual AI simulations to physical installations in public spaces.
While the artists hail from nine different countries in South America, the Caribbean, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, West Africa, and the Pacific, their work crosses and expands our understanding of borders and unexpected solidarities across communities and movements.
This is most evident in the work of artists Shivanjani Lal from Fiji and Australia, Kulli Sarita from Cochabamba in Bolivia, and Leïla Saadna from Algeria and France, who all tell powerful stories of violence and hope, rooted in land, geography, and ancestral belonging in their communities.
Similarly, Gesiye from Trinidad and Tobago, and Albena Baeva from Bulgaria offer discipline-defying work. Gesiye centers the ancient art of tattooing and Albena explores the emerging potentials of tech-based art. Their practices both focus on the depth, nuance, and relevance of a wide range of tools, practices, and discourses that are fundamentally tied to feminist movements everywhere.
Set in Trinidad, this interdisciplinary, social practice work uses tattooing, performance, and storytelling to facilitate healing and to explore the impact of colonialism and slavery on the Black diaspora’s relationship to the land. By Gesiye, Multi-disciplinary artist
The work of Uganda-based poet Samantha, and disability rights activist and artist Natalia "Bubulina" Moreno includes performance, monologue, and poetry as embodied practices for creating safe and brave spaces, providing guideposts for cultural transformation in feminist organizing and politics everywhere.
Éli Moreira from Brazil and an anonymous musician from Iran offer sonic archives and anthems of resistance and freedom that fuels movements, featuring the powerful voices of LGBTQIA+ people in their communities.
Photo credit and art direction: Mayara Ferrão. By Éli Moreira
We are grateful to our powerhouse Artist Changemaker Advisory Council, partners, and the alumni Artist Changemakers for bringing the new Artist Changemakers into the program and our ecosystem.
The Artist Changemaker program is part of Global Fund for Women’s commitment to support and celebrate gender justice movements. We recognize that media, art, and culture are critical to advancing gender justice. The program focuses on artists based in the Global South, women and gender-nonconforming artists, LGBTQI+ people, people of color and/or artists from a historically marginalized group.
Meet the Changemakers
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