Artists Whose Work Is Making A Difference

Artists are change-makers, innovators, and often, progressive with their ideas and values. These artists are helping to change the world one installation, performance, or poem at a time. 

Artist & Activist, Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera is a Cuban performance and installation artist and activist. She uses her work to promote politically motivated pieces. Tania’s work explores the relationships between art, activism, and social change. She examines how these all intertwine with political and economic power. 

Tania has been arrested multiple times and some of her pieces have actually been banned in Cuba due to her political views. She has held exhibits at many museums and most recently had an exhibit up at the MoMA- Museum Of Modern Art. Tania has been featured in galleries and museums across the world, portraying her vision for the world through her work. 

Poet & Educator, Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval is a poet, educator, author, and activist. He co-founded the Louder Than A Bomb Festival. This festival is one of the largest youth poetry festivals in the world based out of Chicago. Kevin was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and throughout his childhood created art in written forms. As he emerged as a poet, Kevin would perform socially engaging poems that entwined personal experiences and calls to action. Coval has been a frequent guest on Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on HBO and is consistently performing throughout the globe. 

Performance Artist, Adrienne Truscott

Adrienne Truscott is a neo-vaudevillian choreographer, storyteller, comedian, circus acrobat, feminist, writer, and dancer. Adrienne creates performances that balance multiple genres while tackling social issues around the world. 

Adrienne Truscott won the Edinburgh Comedy Awards Panel prize and the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality in 2013. Adrienne also works with the Foundation for Contemporary Arts as a writer, teacher, and professor. Adrienne has performed all over the world and on talk shows alike including on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, Sharon Osborne TV shows, London, Australia, and more. The list is endless. 

Naturalist, Jenny Kendler

Jenny Kendler is an artist who is one with mother nature. Jenny is a self-described ecological artist, environmental activist, and naturalist. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, displayed in museums, botanical gardens, and natural public spaces. Jenny creates at that complicates the space between nature and culture to draw the viewer into nature. 

Her most recent work, Gardening For A Changing Climate tackles our effects on the world around us. She has also worked on projects such as Artists on Climate Change and The Long Goodbye. Her work continues to represent nature, our effects on the earth, and climate change- working to open our eyes to the deadly effects. Jenny was named the first artist in residence through the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2014. She contributes to their efforts through her work and foraging practices. 

Performance Artist, Okwui Okpokwasili

Based out of New York City, Okwui Okpokwasili is an Igbo-Nigerian American performance artist, choreographer, and writer. She is multifaceted and draws inspiration from her training in theater. She uses her talents to create art that intertwines dance, theater, and installation. Okwui is a Bessie Award-winning performer and writer who “works beyond labels” of discipline and genre. Since the start of the pandemic, Okwui has been working on projects that bring strangers (safely) together through a project called “Sitting On A Man’s Head.”

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Multimedia Artist, Damon Davis

Damon is a multimedia artist and TED talk fellow who creates music and film based out of St. Louis Missouri. Damon uses his art and his voice to promote black history, black rights, and the right to live- based on his involvement with the Ferguson protests. Since his public art installation, All Hands On Deck, Damon has grown in popularity, continuing to create art that represents black history and black culture. The National Museum of African American History and Culture features his work, All Hands On Deck. 

Installation Artist, Adam Frelin

You may have seen the installation, Breathing Lights pop up in multiple cities. This temporary, public art installation that illuminated hundreds of abandoned buildings was created and designed by Adam Frelin. Adam is an American artist working in sculpture, videography, photography, and performance. Adam works to find the beauty that others would not necessarily see in the abandoned, the decrepit. Adam finds much of his inspiration in traditional works of art, traveling the world and the people around him. 

Photographer, Substantia Jones

Substantia Jones is a photographer and fat activist, working to break down the barriers and stigmas that surround people of a certain size. Substantia’s current work, The Adipositivity Project aims to promote self-acceptance and acceptance of others who range in size variations. She works to encourage discussions of body positivity and politics through visible displays of fat physicality. Photographing people who range in size allows for Substantia Jones to showcase people of all ranges, breaking barriers by showing off their bodies, the very thing they have been conditioned to hide. Substantia Jones showcases people of all sizes, genders, and age range in order to normalize larger bodies and bodies with different modifications. Substantia works to break down the stigma that larger bodies are not healthy bodies, forcing the viewer to see the figure for what they are, simply a normal body. 

Artist & Activist, Monica Trinidad

Monica Trinidad is a Mexican-American artist, entrepreneur, and activist. Monica rates movement art for social justice campaigns. Monica has found works of art For The People, a collective of Black artists, artists of color whose work uplifts and projects struggle, resistance, liberation, and survival. Monica uses her work to create communities of people around the Chicago area, people who can inspire others through their work while promoting different ethnicities and cultures. 

Artists all over the world are making statements through their art, especially during times of political strife, socially unjust, and economic or natural disasters. These artists are creating names for themselves while creating art that interests others, draw them in, and helps them to better understand the world around them.