NEW YORK (December 26, 2021) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is pleased to announce that Václav Havel Prize Laureate and Art in Protest artist-in-residence Badiucao will be featured on CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes,’ airing tonight at 7:30PM EST.
Badiucao is an exiled Chinese dissident artist based in Australia, whose work has taken on a wide variety of forms, including political cartoons, installations, street art, and performances. His art is renowned for denouncing human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech in China. He was awarded HRF’s Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent in 2020, and this year, was presented with the award by HRF Chairman Garry Kasparov at the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami. Badiucao is also an inaugural artist-in-residence of HRF’s Art in Protest Residency, a program launched in 2021, in collaboration with Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, to expand dissident artists’ digital art skills and support their professional development.
The ‘60 Minutes’ episode will take a deep dive into Badiucao’s creative dissent against China’s authoritarian regime and his life in exile, as well as feature his latest poster collection that denounces the upcoming Winter Olympic Games being hosted in Beijing. The collection was initially released at the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami, held on October 4-5, and includes five pieces of art that highlight the Chinese government’s repression of the Tibetan people, the Uyghur genocide, the regime’s censorship and lack of transparency surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the dismantling of freedoms in Hong Kong, and the CCP’s omnipresent surveillance systems.
During Art Basel Miami Beach 2021, the artworks were canvased at various locations around Miami as part of HRF’s campaign to raise awareness within the global art community about the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the use of global sports events by authoritarian regimes around the world as a weapon to whitewash their human rights abuses. HRF is proud to have contributed to a global movement that culminated in the diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics by numerous democratic governments, including the United States, Australia, and Canada.
Badiucao’s Beijing 2022 collection was posted in various locations across Miami, from November 28 – December 11, 2021.
Portions of the ‘60 Minutes’ segment featuring Badiucao, were filmed at the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami, as well as in San Francisco, during Badiucao’s Art in Protest Residency.
As a direct product of his residency, Badiucao announced that his Beijing 2022 collection will be released as open edition non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — his first ever NFT drop. The collection will be available for mint at beijing2022.art, starting on February 1, 2022 to coincide with the Lunar New Year, and continue through the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games. In addition to purchasing the poster collection, collectors will be able to write their own message of opposition to China’s authoritarian regime, which will be recorded in the blockchain as part of the NFT minting process, thereby preserving it as a public decentralized record of protest.
The Art in Protest program is HRF’s answer to the repression of creativity that authoritarian regimes impose. By promoting artists who embody the spirit of creativity and dissent, Art in Protest opens a dialogue about human rights and free expression, and aims to bring to a diverse audience the work of artists who are making an impact in the global struggle against authoritarianism.
In 2021, HRF launched the Art in Protest Residency in partnership with Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. The residency is an opportunity for artists whose art is dedicated to promoting democracy and human rights globally, to explore and expand their digital practices. Throughout the residency, artists-in-residence develop projects that use art and technology to create social and civic impact. In addition to Badiucao, the inaugural cohort of artists has included Belarusian illustrator and graphic designer Lilia Kvatsabaya, and Cuban performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.
For interview requests, please contact artinprotest@hrf.org.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.