IHRAM History
A growing international story written in the heartsong of
beauty, sincerity, vulnerability and diversity!
The International Human Rights Art Festival, founded at Dixon Place Theater (NYC) in March 2017, and incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit in August 2018, has presented a growing body of work.
We expanded from a “festival” to a “movement” in 2023, due to our growing international reach and community of passionate creators in a variety of media.
Founded out of Tom Block’s own art-activist practice, the IHRAM offered a manner of expanding positive energy and influencing social justice and human rights discussions around the world.
The first iteration of the project was the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival, which Tom produced in 2010 outside of Washington DC, the the largest such event ever. The event brought more than 500 artists offering 200 different art events in 40 venues over a weekend.
The opening was live-cast on local cable TV, and featured speeches from Congressman (now Senator) Chris Van Hollen; State Senator (now Congressman) Jamie Raskin; Montgomery County, MD Executive Ike Legett; future Montgomery County, MD Executive Marc Elrich and a handful of other State and County legislators.
A philosophy of engagement
The founding principles of the organization reside in the belief that oppositionality — separating people into those who agree with us, and those against who we must fight — does little but harden walls and solidify the status quo.
As Nelson Mandela said: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
Our work is to open doorways, to allow people to hear and understand each other, from a Ugandan poet-in-exile to United States Senators; from a bullied high school student in Bangladesh to an international activist going head-to-head with China.
We do not want to smash the walls of power. As Lao Tzu noted: “Violence, even well-intentioned, always rebounds upon itself.” We believe that opening doorways into those halls with a gentle spirit and solid faith in our message and beauty is the strongest manner of effecting positive social change.
Our growth
Begun as a one-off Festival in March 2017, we were surprised and emboldened by the amount and quality of artistic interest, the size of the audience and the strong press reaction. We incorporated as an organization that summer, and received 501c3 non profit status by August of the next year.
As we became better known, both locally and, through digital outreach, internationally, a much wider range of artists and media began to approach us, hungry for a platform that fit their work and philosophy. The IHRAM Press began with a literary magazine in 2019, when Tom met Michaela Zelie, who was waiting tables in Rangeley, ME. After discovering that she was a poet, he said he was thinking of starting a literary aspect to the organization. Her beautiful piece, “Broken Bread Sestina,” began our literary journal, and we were soon receiving literary works from around the world.
The African Secretariat grew out of working with two powerful African creators, Mbizo Chirasha, who came to us in 2017, as he fled Zimbabwe one step ahead of the C.I.O. (Zimbabwean Secret Police), and Wole Adedoyin the President of the Society of Young Nigerian Writers. By early 2020, these two creators were delivering such passionate work and expanding our reach throughout that Continent, that we opened our offices in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and began publishing anthologies and highlighting the creative work of Africans.
The incredible energy generated by our organic growth and reach then demanded of us to begin the IHRAM Press book publishing arm, with our current, powerful editor, Bridget Reuame. We began our award season in 2019, to offer another manner of highlighting literary and visual work around the world, offering two to three awards every year. We began our fellowship program and ran interim events. And we continued to expand our work with our Honorary Committee, opening a doorway for our artists around the United States and world to present their work in conjunction with some of the most important social and political leaders of our time.