After holding exhibitions on the themes of human rights and peace during 2004; I noticed so many artists consciously working to help the international situation in terms of violations of people’s rights and lack of warmth between people and populations; that I thought somehow we must have a stronger united voice in this path. While the artists use the soft tender language of art to speak out for humanity, I got the idea of writing a manifesto to express our philosophy in the art which we produce.

After numerous consultations and discussions with artists and scholars, I produced a manifesto, called Humanitarian Art Manifesto. In September 2004, we coordinated a worldwide exhibition to launch the manifesto. Several artists signed and joined in the synergy. It is a movement whose philosophy of art can be summed up as ‘art for life’s sake’ rather than ‘art for art’s sake’. Since 2004 new artists have joined, and every year during the months of September and October we hold simultaneous artistic events to create synergy and re-launch the manifesto.

The text of the manifesto has been translated to 8 languages. Translations ready to download: (word document : Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Farsi, German, Spanish, French, English)

http://lidasherafatmand.bravehost.com

If you are an artist and would like to join in the synergy please send an email to Lida Sherafatmand : lidasherafatmand@yahoo.com