Worldwide Call to Action: Harnessing the Power of Art and Culture for Change with the Launch of Global Artivism Month
Monday 14 September, 2026
Global Artivism Month Launches Worldwide Call to Harness the Power of Art and Culture for Change
On Monday, 1 November 2026, the Global Artivism Movement will launch Global Artivism Month, a new global initiative inviting artists, activists, cultural practitioners, schools, community groups, organizations, and movements to use the power of arts and culture to drive social, economic, and environmental justice.
This 40-day mobilization will run from 1 November to 10 December 2026, culminating on Human Rights Day. It aims to connect locally rooted creative actions under one shared global identity, making visible what is often experienced as separate acts of creativity, resistance, and imagination. To participate and learn more, please visit https://www.globalartivism.org/artivism-month.
In its inaugural year, the movement aims to have more than 100 countries and 5,000 participating organizations, collectives, networks, and community spaces. Participation is free and open, and the movement is not asking communities to create something new for the campaign. Instead, it encourages people to bring what they already make, do it where they already are, and connect it to something the whole world can see.
Kumi Naidoo, co-founder of the Global Artivism Movement and former Secretary-General of Amnesty International and Executive Director of Greenpeace International, stated, “For too long, those of us working for social and environmental justice have often spoken primarily to people’s heads, while failing to reach their hearts, bodies, souls, and imaginations. Facts and policy matter enormously, but people do not build movements on facts alone. Culture shapes how we understand ourselves, each other, and what we believe is possible.”
Global Artivism Month has been designed as a decentralised mobilisation, with activities remaining locally owned and taking place in participants’ own languages, communities, and political realities. At its heart is a Sunrise Relay, where the spotlight will move from region to region, amplifying creative actions through stories, images, performances, and reflections. These contributions will also form part of a growing Global Artivism Mosaic, creating a collective visual record of cultural action around the world.
The chosen 40 days coincide with a remarkable concentration of global moments for justice and solidarity, including COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye (9–20 November); the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) and the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (25 November–10 December); the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (29 November); World AIDS Day (1 December); the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery (2 December); the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December); and Human Rights Day (10 December).
Global Artivism Month encourages artists, cultural workers, and creative communities to support and strengthen the struggles, campaigns, and movements associated with these and other significant moments wherever appropriate to their own context. This is an invitation, not a restriction, and participants remain entirely free to determine the issues they address, the forms their work takes, and the communities with whom they engage. The hope is simply that Global Artivism Month can become a cultural amplifier for movements already working for dignity, justice, peace, and a thriving planet.
Leading up to November, there will be six virtual regional convenings between 21 September and 29 October, enabling people to meet others working in their regions, exchange ideas, and help shape the mobilisation. A Global Artivism Convening from 3–7 November will open the month and connect the growing network internationally.
Global Artivism Month is coordinated by Natalia Mallo, Global Artivism Month Specialist, working alongside the Global Artivism Secretariat, Regional Fellows, and partners. Natalia Mallo is a multi-artist, curator, and cultural strategist based in São Paulo, Brazil, with decades of experience working across arts, cultural diplomacy, and movements for social change.
“The creative work needed to change our societies is already happening everywhere,” said Mallo. “Our role is not to tell communities what to create. It is to help connect what they are already doing, make it visible, and enable people working in very different places to recognise themselves as part of a shared movement.”
Global Artivism Month comes at a time of intersecting crises, including climate breakdown, war, growing inequality, racism, attacks on human rights, and shrinking democratic space. But artists and cultural practitioners are also helping communities resist injustice, preserve memory, heal, shift narratives, and imagine alternatives.
Global Artivism is a Global South and Global Majority-led movement built around three core commitments: being Global Majority-led, being powered by arts and culture, and working towards a safe and just world. Its premise is simple: art is not decoration added after the “real” work of social change has been done. Culture itself is power.
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