ARTivism: Inspiring Activism Through the Arts

A donation to ICAAD is a contribution to building a more equitable future.

 

By investing in systems-level change, your impact can last for generations.

ICAAD’s work is focused on resisting injustice and building equity. We work with local communities and governments to change systems and challenge the root causes of injustice.

Inspiring Greater Public Awareness and Social Action Through the Arts

 

ICAAD's ARTivism initiative launched in 2020 to inspire greater public awareness and social action through the arts. The program is based on the belief that art is a powerful tool to communicate across borders and languages, and can combat harmful narratives while building solidarity. 

Artists in Resident 

 

ICAAD's inaugural resident artist is Harbani Kaur Ahuja, a public interest attorney committed to serving marginalized communities and advocating for human rights in all spaces. She has been involved in many legal, policy, legislative, and advocacy efforts, focusing on civil rights, immigrant rights, and public health. Harbani is also a writer who enjoys creating art through various mediums, including graphic design and poetry. Harbani’s creative work can be found in Her Name is Kaur: Sikh Women Write about Love, Courage, and Faith. 

As an ICAAD ARTivist, Harbani developed a virtual public art project, Dicta, which explores the struggle for human rights by illuminating U.S. Supreme Court decisions impacting women’s rights, immigrant rights and the rights of Black people. Her poems breathe fire into what can often be a difficult medium for lay audiences to penetrate.

Harbani's collections can be viewed as a public arts project through an immersive virtual gallery. The collection serves to educate and inspire the general public in the U.S. to better understand the timelessness of civil rights issues and the importance of engaging in legal activism.

This year, ICAAD welcomed five new resident artists. They come from diverse backgrounds and practices spanning film, cartoons, photography, paint and mixed media, and are creating collections to be released in 2023.

Your support will allow us to create public art projects for each artist to share their respective collections with the world and advance social justice.