"We make space to move from fear to love through the co-creation of beauty in public space."
Fearless Foundation's approach
Fearless Foundation first started as Shilo Shiv Suleman's art project in 2012. It was an intense moment of protest in India, following the "Nirbhaya" gang-rape and murder in Delhi. People took to the streets with their anger written on signs and posters. According to Prarthana Gupta and Dridhata Silwal, the words were harsh and reflected a sense of fear.
The Fearless project was an open call for people to work on affirmative sentences, spreading love and hope in moments of protests. Shilo created a method of public and participative art interventions with women and misrepresented communities, as a form of activism.
It is now a non-profit foundation, disseminating this approach across the world, and particularly in the global south.
"We have created over 40 public monuments in 16 countries, working with communities most invisible or marginalized -- including Muslim and Dalit women in India, Indigenous communities in Brazil and North America, communities affected by gang violence in Pakistan, Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and queer communities in Tunisia and Indonesia as they reclaim these public spaces with the images and affirmations they choose."
Based on a ritualistic process to understand the past, their journey and their hopes, the stories are then showcased publicly as murals. The participative workshops create a space to help the participants from the community determine what they want the world to see from them and to guide them in the imagination of "safe and sacred futures".
"Born from immersive workshops facilitated with different communities - the methodology brings together symbol, ritual and storytelling to activate imaginations and create collective mythology."
The artists work in total cooperation with the community participants, painting with them. When the whole process is finished, they organize a "fearless feast", a street party where allies and decision makers are invited to this deeply political artistic event.
For Prarthana and Dridhata, it's the perfect time for politics to come out from working behind closed doors. It is high time for them to see what is happening on the ground, what the youth and everyday people are saying and feeling.
Fearless Foundation has 3 categories of artistic campaigns: "at the root" on gender and environmental justice, "embodied" on the gender spectrum and "border softer" on migration and conflict. All of them are reflecting the feminist, queer and decolonial values at the heart of the broader project.
The issues of climate change appear frequently during the workshops, but always in intersection with other themes woven with it. For example, while working on a mural in Sri Lanka with a community of female surfers, the subject of sport, gender and climate movements were unveiled as interconnected concerns. Additionally, when brought up in the discussions, the climate crisis is never looked at from a technical point of view but from the threats the communities are facing.
A mural for youth at the COP 27
In 2022, Fearless Foundation collaborated with Greenpeace MENA and the Children and Youth Pavilion to work on a mural giving insights on the point of view of young peoples in the global south communities, living in the places most impacted by the climate crisis.
The location of the workshop and mural was the Blue Zone of the COP27 in Egypt, a UN-run place frequently receiving a variety of audiences amongst government members and civil society.
The themes discussed and represented by the young activists were numerous and ambitious: loss and damage, displacement of populations, reparations, contemporary legacy of colonial and capitalist violence and so on.
The characters painted on the mural offered a feminist view on climate activism.
"Painted on the threshold of the Youth Pavillion in the Blue Zone are three women:
Puyr Tembe, an indigenous leader from Brazil holding roots in her fingers as a remembrance of our traditional knowledge systems in the global south, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda representing the choices we can make now, and Ayisha Siddiqa from Pakistan reaching into the sky representing a future we can reclaim."