Arts & Culture changemakers

The selection

• Aaron SorkinLos Angeles, USA“Because he understood that the gap between democratic ideals and institutional reality is where drama lives, and because works like “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom” showed millions of people what genuine public-spirited argument could look like before they’d ever witnessed it in their actual institutions.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Adama DiopDakar, Senegal“Who migrates, and how do we encounter otherness? Adama Diop opens up unexpected pathways.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Africa Center Hong KongHong Kong, ChinaRecommended by Cesar Jung-Harada
• Amélie NothombParis, France“Amélie Nothomb, writer and extraordinary woman. Because her presence in the world of writing is a constant source of inspiration, as is the idea that one can write every single day, each day at dawn, and deliver readers a new book every year, for the sole reason that inspiration never runs dry. Her very existence is a constant reminder of my own laziness.”Recommended by Ilaria Gaspari
• Atelier Berger MilàParis, France“A young Franco-Spanish duo who treat architecture as the tissue between people and their territory. A quiet, exacting practice, from a single room to the fabric of a city.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Aude OlivaCambridge, USARecommended by Katy Foraz
• Bernard StieglerParis, France“A philosopher of technology (1952-2020), Bernard Stiegler saw every tool as both remedy and poison. He championed an economy of contribution in which everyone becomes a producer of knowledge again.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• BiofabricateNew York, USA“Suzanne Lee built the community that takes grown materials out of the lab and into actual products.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Birdgirl (Mya-Rose Craig)Bristol, UK“Mya-Rose opens birdwatching and nature to communities that were too often kept outside.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Centre Culturel des Afro-descendants de Montréal - CCAMMontreal, CanadaRecommended by JJ Hazoumé
• CopenhillCopenhagen, Denmark“A power plant you can ski down. Bold, and I respect that they also show its contradictions honestly.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• DiazomaAthens, Greece“They bring ancient theatres back to life for the towns around them. Heritage that still breathes.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Donna HarawaySanta Cruz, USARecommended by Søren Hermansen
• Elle BarbaraMontreal, CanadaRecommended by JJ Hazoumé
• Enzo TortoraMilan, Italy“Because his wrongful imprisonment became a catalyst for Italian judicial reform, and because he transformed personal injustice into a campaign for systemic change.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Fonds ExploreConcarneau, France“They fund the expeditions that help us understand a world we are still learning to protect.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Françoise VergèsSaint-Denis, La Réunion“Who cleans the world, and who keeps it running? Françoise Vergès reflects on the politics of maintenance and the invisible labor performed by women.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Germaine AcognyToubab Dialaw, Senegal“Because gesture and movement are, above all, a constant rethinking of openness.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Hannah ArendtNew York City, USA“Because she insisted on understanding politics as the realm of human plurality and action rather than administration, and because she never stopped asking what makes democratic life possible beyond bureaucratic processes.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Heatherwick StudioLondon, UK“Thomas argues that buildings should move us. His work makes the argument for him.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Heman BekeleAnnandale, USA“Coming up with the beginnings of a simple, accessible solution to prevent a global problem. What a gem!”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Instituto TerraAimorés, Brazil“The Salgados replanted a dead farm as forest. The springs came back, then the animals. It gives me hope.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Judith ShklarCambridge, MA, USA“Because she built an entire political theory around “putting cruelty first” as the foundation of liberalism, and because she showed that defending ordinary citizens from arbitrary power - whether public or private - is the core democratic project, not some secondary concern after we’ve sorted out grand constitutional principles.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Kéré ArchitectureBerlin, Germany“Francis Kéré builds with local hands and local materials, and the community owns what gets built.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• La ChartreuseAiguenoire, France“They chose to make less so as to stay what they are. That takes courage, and I admire it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• La MaestraParis, FranceRecommended by Constance Albanel
• Lucas Davaze, Médiation ClimatGRENOBLE, France“He takes people to stand on a dying glacier. Climate stops being an idea and becomes a memory they keep.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Malcom FerdinandFort-de-France, Martinique“Making visible the scandal of the pesticide chlordécone: what its past use tells us, what its present-day effects reveal, and what it means for future generations.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Mellon FoundationNew York, USA“They put the arts and the humanities first in what they fund. It takes some nerve, and I respect it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Michel MayorGenève, Switzerland“He turned the question of whether we are alone into something we can measure.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Milo RauVienna, Austria“This is the first time, thanks to him, that I’ve thought about the immediate possibility of art. Not in 20 years, not in 10 years, but right now, in order to repair the living world.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• MIT Media LabBoston, MA, USA“Their belief that the best ideas live between disciplines. I come back to it often.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• New RoomMontreal, CanadaRecommended by JJ Hazoumé
• Nicolas NovaGenève, Switzerland“Nicolas taught designers to think like anthropologists. Their work matters more for it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Paul Emilieu StudioParis, France“He starts every project from what already exists. Craft and conscience, working together.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Pierre RosanvallonParis, France“Because he built an entire intellectual project around making democracy work better rather than just critiquing it, and because he showed that rigorous scholarship and public engagement are not just compatible but necessary complements.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Potato headSeminyak, IndonesiaRecommended by Simon Bernard
• RobriesSurabaya, IndonesiaRecommended by Simon Bernard
• Rotor DeconstructionBruxelles, Belgium“They prove that salvaging a building's materials can pay for itself. That is what convinces builders.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Schumacher CollegeDartington, UK“A school that lives what it teaches, grows its own food and decides together. That is education I believe in.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Senseable City Lab (MIT)Cambridge, USA“Carlo Ratti reads the city as a living organism. His work helps us see ourselves inside it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Shinichiro OgataTokyo, Japan“Ogata carries Japanese tradition into the present, with a care you can see in everything he makes.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Shorefast Foundation / Fogo Island InnFogo island, Canada“Zita Cobb came home. She turned hospitality into a way of keeping her island alive.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Simone Schwarz-BartGoyave, Guadeloupe“To bring such a small part of the world to the fore, knowing that it holds so many of the answers to the challenges of our time.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• Studio Other SpacesBerlin, Germany“Eliasson and Behmann make spaces that ask you to feel where you stand in nature.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Studio RoosegaardeRotterdam, Netherlands“Daan turns technology into a conversation about the world we want.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Susan NeimanPotsdam, Germany“How can we grow older without betraying ourselves or our ideals? Susan Neiman embarks on a reflection on what it truly means to become an adult.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville
• The Emergence NetworkChennai, India“Bayo gives me permission to slow down and sit with a question, rather than rush to fix it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Transition NetworkTotnes, UK“Rob taught me that imagining the future is a tool in itself, and the climate transition needs it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Under The PoleConcarneau, France“They dive where science cannot easily reach, and they share everything they find.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Ursula HirschmannBrussels, Belgium“Because she co-authored the Ventotene Manifesto’s vision of European federalism while herself stateless, and because she demonstrated that building transnational democracy requires both intellectual courage and practical organizing across borders.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Wael ShawkyAlexandria, Egypt“Shawky makes history feel unstable, in a good way. His puppets and staged operas show that every official account was built by someone, and that taking the telling back is a form of resistance.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Wanjira MathaiNairobi, Kenya“She carries the Green Belt Movement forward while shaping climate policy for the continent. With her, the link between restored land and restored dignity becomes obvious.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Wildlife Conservation Fund / Hélène GrimaudNew York, USA“A great pianist who gives her fame to wolves. Art and wildness together, and it moves me.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Yellow Dot StudiosLos Angeles, USA“They use sharp humour to call out greenwashing. It keeps people awake, and I enjoy it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Yves CittonParis, France“A professor at Université Paris 8, Yves Citton thinks of attention as an ecology: a scarce resource, captured by the media, that we must cultivate together as a shared environment.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• ÉcomarisMontréal, Canada“They make plankton visible. Half our oxygen comes from it and we never see it, so this helps us care.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Éditions WildprojectMarseille, France“Founded in Marseille in 2008, the publishing house Wildproject brought the great texts of ecological thought into French and laid the foundations of the French environmental humanities.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• Édouard LouisParis, France“Constantly proving that telling intimate stories, bringing the ordinary to the fore, is an immensely political act.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville