The International Free Expression Project has sponsored hundreds of artworks -- including a blocklong pressroom art installation for the 21st Century First Amendment Conference in June. It has purchased and preserved 90 tons of newspaper press parts and thousands of artifacts. It has attracted enormous local and growing national and international support. It is about to incorporate as a standalone nonprofit organization (it currently has a nonprofit fiscal sponsor), hire paid staff and develop a long-term strategic plan. Recent events include:
On Oct. 16, IFEP held a 'friendraiser' in San Francisco featuring a performance by Vietnamese singer/dissident Mai Khoi, an IFEP International Advisory Board member and 2018 awardee of the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent. It was hosted by Crowell & Moring and held at the law firm's offices overlooking San Francisco Bay. Members of the San Francisco and Silicon Valley banking, business and legal communities expressed excitement about helping to advance the project.
On Oct. 21-22, IFEP mounted an exhibit of artworks sponsored activities at the National Conference on the First Amendment.
IFEP supporters to date
Local supporters include the mayor of Pittsburgh, the county executive of Allegheny County, The Pittsburgh Foundation, the Henry John Simonds Foundation, the Pittsburgh Office of Public Art, curators of Carnegie Museums and several dozen Carnegie Mellon University faculty members and grad students in art, robotics, engineering, architecture and other fields. There are many more.
IFEP’s expanding and diversifying International Advisory Board so far includes actor Michael Keaton, historian David McCullough; Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron; news anchor Tom Brokaw; Vietnamese singer/dissident and Havel Prize laureate Mai Khoi, past chair Omar Rabago Vital of the International Free Expression Exchange, and Electronic Frontier Foundation director of international free expression Jillian York.
News coverage (local)
NextPittsburgh / June 25, 2018
WESA-NPR / June 19, 2018
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette / June 19, 2018
For more information, email info@ifep.io