Artist Changemaker Program

Toni Cade Bambara
The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.

The Artist Changemaker Program at Global Fund for Women supports artists who are making the gender justice revolution irresistible by using their art as a tool for new visions of the world, where equity and equality for all is a reality.

The program is part of Global Fund for Women’s commitment to support movements, and offers eight artists annually a one-time, unrestricted financial award to each artist with a focus on artists based in the majority world, women artists, LGBTQI+ people, people of color, and artists from a marginalized community.

Global Fund for Women has supported grassroots gender justice organizations who are working at the intersection of art and activism for nearly 30 years. Since 1994, we have supported more than 200 organizations in 80 countries worldwide who use art as a strategy for social change. In 2014, Global Fund for Women merged with the International Museum of Women, launching award-winning creative online advocacy campaigns including Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, DefendHer, featuring women human rights defenders around the globe, and most recently Fundamental: Gender Justice. No Exceptions, an Emmy-nominated series of docu-shorts featuring gender justice movement leaders in five countries.

MEET THE 2025 ARTIST CHANGEMAKERS

MEET THE ARTIST CHANGEMAKERS

Cooperativa Visual

Shirley (she/her) and Araceli (she/her) are the artist-duo of Cooperativa Visual, an interdisciplinary DIY collective of Bolivian women. In the past few years, they have...

Xaytun Ennasr

Xaytun Ennasr (they/she) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer. Their work includes videogames, drawings, ceramics, installations, and text. It centers around Palestinian liberation, intersectional resistance...

Liliana Zaragoza Cano

Liliana (Ellae/They) is a hack-feminist queer artist, writer, community organizer, and producer, originally from Guadalajara, México. They imagine, design and rewrite landscapes, languages, and worlds....

Alma Gačanin

Alma Gačanin (she/her) lives and works as an artist, regardless of the job she might have at any given time. She holds a Master's degree...

Ivón Eliana Muñoz Romero

Ivón is a Peruvian artist and percussionist with more than 15 years of experience in prominent groups such as "Perú Negro" and "NOVALIMA". She is...

Krantinaari

Krantinaari (she/her) known as "Voice of Revolution," is a versatile artist, rapper, and graphic designer from Mumbai, India. Her music, a fusion of Hindi, English,...

Saadia Batool

Saadia Batool (she/her) is a mixed-media artist from Pakistan. She graduated with a distinction in Fine Arts from the National College of Art Lahore in...

Zhang Mengqi

Zhang Mengqi (she/her) is a filmmaker, choreographer and a founding member of the Folk Memory Project. Mengqi has made eleven feature-length documentaries, known as “Self-Portrait...

Mia Kami

Shirley (she/her) and Araceli (she/her) are the artist-duo of Cooperativa Visual, an interdisciplinary DIY collective of Bolivian women. In the past few years, they have...

Sarah Kaddoura Artist Changemaker
Sarah Kaddoura

Saadia Batool (she/her) is a visual artist from Pakistan. She graduated with a distinction in Fine Arts from the National College of Art Lahore in...

Natalia “Bubulina” Moreno

Natalia “Bubulina” Moreno Rodriguez (she/her) is a woman with a physical disability, a social communicator, a human rights advocate and educator, a Latin American consultant,...

Kulli Sarita

Kulli Sarita (she/her) is an illustrator in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Kulli Sarita has deep connections and collaborations with women’s organizations and collectives tied to the principles...

Leïla Saadna

Leïla Saadna (she/her) is a documentary filmmaker, visual artist, and director of photography who lives and works in Algiers, Algeria. Her films deal with exile...

Éli Moreira

Éli Moreira (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist, cultural producer, and a gender and sexual dissident currently living and working in Salvador, Bahía, Brazil. Their art...

Gesiye

Gesiye (she/they) works with individuals and communities using performance, tattooing, installation, and image-making to explore embodiment and storytelling as forms of liberation. Raised in a...

Shivanjani Lal

Shivanjani Lal (she/her) is a Fijian-Australian artist and curator whose work uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss. Recent works have used storytelling, objects,...

Anonymous Artist

The artist opted to remain anonymous. In the spirit of practicing feminist ethics of care and safety, we offer anonymity for all Artist Changemakers. Artist...

Samantha Ainembabazi

Samantha Ainembabazi (she/her) is a poet, spoken-word artist, and curator. She began writing poetry at eight years old, when her family went through a traumatic experience...

Albena Baeva

Albena Baeva (she/her) is at the forefront of interactive art in Bulgaria. She works with artificial intelligence (AI), physical computing, creative coding, and augmented reality,...

Loretta J. Ross

Loretta J. Ross joined the women's movement in 1978 by working at the first rape crisis center in the United States and learned about women's...

Cecilia Palmeiro

Cecilia Palmeiro (she/her) is one of the founders of the transformative Latin American feminist movement Ni Una Menos, or “Not One Woman Less,” which organizes...

Merlina Anunnaki

Merlina Anunnaki (she/her) is a feminist graphic artist from Bolivia, devoted to illustration, screen printing, and woodcutting. She is a self-taught artist whose works are...

Shika

Shika/Shieko Reto (she/her) is a visual artist from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, whose work features trans women’s experiences from Malaysia, LGBTQIA+ rights, environmental concerns, and human...

Jono Lena

Jono Lena (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Salvador, Brazil. Her art revolves around gender, identity, ancestrality, and race in the face of white,...

Crispine Ngena

As a feminist and environmental activist in Africa, Crispine Ngena (She/Her)works with women, young girls, and indigenous communities to build egalitarian communities for a better...

Winnet Shamuyarira

Winnet (She/Her) is a Zimbabwean feminist activist whose work focuses on women’s bodily autonomy and interrogating power and patriarchy's impact on women's sexual and reproductive...

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls

As a Pacific Island feminist, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls (She/Her) stands out. She works at the intersections of development and humanitarian spaces. She has committed her...

Rael Akware

Rael Akware (She/Her advocates for marginalized ethnic minority women and girls through public interest litigation and legal aid. She is passionate about amplifying women and...

Photo of Jaycie Lewis, a Performance Artist in Antigua & Barbuda
Jaycie Lewis

Jaycie Lewis (she/them) is an Antiguan artist born 27 years ago to a Kittitian mother and Antiguan father. At present, the manifestation of her artistry...

Qańtar Samal

Qańtar Samal (she/her) is a Kazakh digital artist from Aktobe. In her work, she shares her vision of Kazakh/Central Asian culture and its connection to...

Anonymous Musician

One member of our third Artist Changemaker cohort has opted to remain anonymous. In the spirit of practicing feminist ethics of care and safety and...

Disha Ravi

Disha A Ravi (She/Her) is a 23-year old feminist, climate and environmental activist.

Lehna Huie

Lehna Huie (she/her/hers) is a multi-disciplinary artist of Jamaican heritage born in New York City. Through her work, Lehna is committed to uplifting stories of...

Mona Benyamin

Mona Benyamin (she/her/hers) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker based in Haifa. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma, and questions...

Lujain Jo

Lujain Jo (she/her/hers) is an Iraqi filmmaker, activist, and performance artist currently living in Lebanon. As part of her strong interest in the manifestations of...

Kearra Amaya Gopee

Kearra Amaya Gopee (they/them/theirs) is an anti-disciplinary visual artist from Carapichaima, Kairi (the larger of the twin island nation known as Trinidad and Tobago), living...

MEET THE ARTIST CHANGEMAKER ADVISORY COUNCIL

The program is shaped by our Artist Changemaker Advisory Council, a group of feminist creatives, artists, and activists whose work transcend borders, cultures, and disciplines.

Lia-Zevallos-Malasquez
1_Dayna Ash
Artist Changemaker Council4
3_Ashara Ekundayo
Artist Changemaker Council2
Claudia-Pozo
Ana-Simona
Epifania-akosua-amoo-adare
9_Marissa
Artist Changemaker Council
Sian-Rolls
6_Esra'a Al Shafei
Artist Changemaker Council3
Artist Changemaker Council5

Members of the Artist Changemaker Advisory Council join Global Fund for Women in imagining a world where movements for gender justice have transformed privilege and power for a few into equity and equality for all. Artist Changemaker Advisory Council members recognize and commit to a set of Guiding Principles in our shared work as they shape Global Fund for Women's Artist Changemaker Program.

Deep gratitude to the alumni of our Artist ChangemakerAdvisory Council

2022 - 2024: Amina Doherty, Aisha Shillingford, Ashara Ekundayo, Aweqawe Mda, Claudia Pozo, Epifania Amoo-Adare, Marissa Gutierrez, Priya Kvam, Polina Vyzhak, Shilo Shiv Suleman.