Every two years, Impact Awards honour six trailblazing individuals who engage their own communities with creative works that are relevant, urgent and inspiring. This year’s Awardees are: Ailton Krenak, Brazil; María Medrano, Argentina; Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Cuba; May al-Ibrashy, Egypt; Hassan Darsi, Morocco and Alain Gomis, Senegal.

By Jasmine Liu

The jailed artist was praised for his activism against censorship and authoritarianism in Cuba.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is one of six artists to be honoured by the Dutch NGO

New reports on the condition of Cuban artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has been held at the maximum-security prison Guanajay for more than a year, have reignited calls for his release online. On August 16, his Twitter account shared that he was confined in a punishment cell “without the possibility of seeing the sun.”

by Valentina Di Liscia

The artists in Umbral, or “threshold,” address the dystopia of voicing dissent on the island and the tension of existing as a Cuban citizen anywhere in the world.

Julie Mehretu, John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Díaz, and Oscar Murillo

The Cuban government is detaining the artist solely for expressing his ideas through his art and for his nonviolent defense of human rights.

Por Coco Fusco

There is a Black artist in Cuba who has turned his own struggle with state authorities into a media spectacle that dramatizes the situation of his people. His work points to the contradictions between his society’s purported ideals and the governing elite’s ruthless pursuit of total power and wealth. He has been thrown in jail dozens of times, and tens of thousands of Cubans around the world follow him online.