Can art change the world?
Art has always changed the world. The question is what it's changing it toward.
Art challenges ideas, shapes cultures, preserves wisdom, and helps us imagine futures we can't yet see.
I wonder...
Can we, as artists, embrace a greater Creative Social Responsibility (CSR) and together shape a new story? One where happiness flows from gratitude and kindness rather than accumulation and competition. Inspired by indigenous cultures, I have come to see our planet not as a resource, but as Mother Earth.
My journey
Early in my career I immersed myself in advertising, lifestyle magazines, and the imagery that dominated popular culture. My work reflected exactly what I consumed, and people told me I should go to LA. Instead, I travelled in the opposite direction.
I spent time in orphanages, townships, rainforests, and indigenous communities. I met people who measured wealth less by possessions than by relationships, gratitude, generosity, and connection to nature. As I changed the cultures I surrounded myself with, my thinking changed, and so did my photography.
My realisation
When I stopped and reflected on how my creative expression is shaped by the information I consume, I consciously changed my mental diet, and my creative expression naturally changed as well. I started to choose what to believe instead of allowing myself to be fed by temporary trends and commercial interests.
Why I create
The questions I kept asking myself were: why do I create, and where do my values come from? That question sparked a desire to create an advertising campaign that benefited children instead of shareholders and gave birth to the Human Alphabet, co-created with thousands of children around the world, which later gave birth to Kinditude, soon to be launched. My journey has reshaped not only what I create, but why I create.
The future is shaped by the stories we consume, and by the stories we choose to reflect back into the world through our art, thoughts, words, and actions.
