Cartooning Global Forum
CRNI at second Cartooning Global Forum
The second Cartooning Global Forum / États Généraux du Dessin de Presse / المنتدى العام لرسوم الصحف took place at locations around Paris October 1st through 3rd and once again CRNI had a leadership role in the event.
For the second year running Cartoonists Rights Network International has assisted in the effort to bring together cartoonists, the organisations that represent them and experts from affiliated fields together for a working day where best practice can be shared and the future of our profession and art form discussed, all as we make efforts to persevere through unprecedented hostility from authoritarian regimes and dwindling interest from increasingly risk-averse and cash-strapped news media.
Cartooning Global Forum – 2019
This year and ambitious three-day programme was mounted. To begin, cartoonists and educators spent an afternoon discussing freedom of expression and the significance of dessin de presse with students from multiple Parisian schools. We were hosted by the Mairie de Paris at the Hôtel de Ville and the diplomas given at the end of the day's activities were co-signed by the mayor Anne Hidalgo as well as Serge Barbet, director of CLEMI the French government's media literacy organisation, and the main organisers on the forum's steering committee.
Students from schools around Paris attended the first day of the CGF.
CRNI's acting executive director Terry Anderson and our representative in Australia Cathy Wilcox were among those leading the discussion.
Cartoonists such as Mohamed Saadani demonstrated techniques.
Students had the opportunity to view displays of cartoons with context provide by experts like Alain Schott.
The second day was the main working session at Mairie Quatre Paris with warm welcoming words from the 4th arrondissement's mayor Ariel Weil. Over one hundred delegates from twenty nations participated in two grand roundtable discussions focusing on education and peace & justice (see below). As ever there were multiple and strident commitments made to the principles of freedom of expression and resistance to censorship in all its forms. Never the less, multiple participants stated concerns about "hate speech" and bad actors who utilise cartoons to what might be regarded as nefarious ends. This indicates that our shared conversation is moving on to a new phase, where many cartoonists are perhaps ready to recognise that, in the words of our dear friend Zunar, talent is a responsibility.
Grand roundtable discussions are at heart of the Cartooning Global Forum
Colleagues such as Dr Arun Inamdar, Indian Institute of Technology travelled from around the world to participate.
CRNI is currently an Index on Censorship Fellow; the organisation was represented by their head of advocacy, Joy Hyvarinen.
Terry Anderson and colleagues from the CGF international committee, Emad Hajjaj, Carol Isaacs, Martine Marineau and Daryl Cagle.
At the conclusion of the day it was announced that going forward the CGF's online material will be provided in Arabic as well as French and English. This is a very welcome addition and we are appreciative of the great effort put in by Abdellah Bennabbou and Mohamad Saadani of the Moroccan Association of Cartoonists to achieve this.
A focus on the preservation and marketing of cartoons at the BnF Francois Mitterrand.
Cartoons by PX Molina (Nicaragua) are installed at the Sorbonne university.
Cartoons by Badiucao (China) are installed at the Sorbonne university.
Terry Anderson and Yann Tomas, Sorbonne Art Gallery
The third and final day was split between the Bibliotéque National de France where an absorbing discussion concerning the preservation and marketing of cartoons was convened and the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne law faculty where we were very privileged to have been given space in which to mount a display of work by the two most recent Courage in Cartooning Award winners, PX Molina and Badiucao.
Work by our Courage Award-winning cartoonists @pxmolina & @badiucao are on shown @SorbonneParis1 as part of #CGFEGDP & for the next 3 weeks.#StandWithHongKong #SOSNicaragua pic.twitter.com/nyInTLYLrg
— CRNI (@CRNetInt) October 4, 2019
The tangible outcome of these forums is a set of recommendations made with reference to several of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. In this way, it is hoped that our work can more readily dovetail with that undertaken by governmental agencies, academic and cultural institutions, NGOs and other professional associations around the world. These recommendations are a work in progress and will be revised each year. 2018's edition is still available with the the next to come very soon.
We are enormously grateful to all members of the CGF's steering and international committees and most especially Nicolas Jacquette & Jérôme Liniger (directors, Studio Irresistible) and Chloé Verlhac-Tignous (director of publishing, Editions Les Petites Teignes). We look forward to working with them again next fall.
Badiucao wins CRNI's Courage in Cartooning Award 2019
CRNI announces its annual prize, now dubbed the Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award.
Badiucao, China's Artful Dissident
In recognition of his bold defiance and courageous decision to remove the literal mask of anonymity under which he has worked for a decade, Cartoonists Rights Network International bestows its award for 2019 to the Chinese dissident, campaigner and visual artist Badiucao.
Earlier this year we wrote about China's Artful Dissident, the documentary film made by Danny Ben-Moshe and broadcast on ABC in Australia, which covers the period prior to Badiucao's first major exhibition of work in Hong Kong. The show was set to proceed in November last year but was cancelled at the last moment when it became apparent that Badiucao's family in China were being harassed by police. This meant that the CCP had successfully discerned Badiucao's true identity and led to many months in which the artist withdrew completely from public life.
In April 2019 China's Artful Dissident aired with a coda in which Badiucao removed his mask. This heralded his return to artistic practice and was soon followed with a number of public artworks as well as online cartoons to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Since then, the whole world's attention has been galvanised by the massive public protests in Hong Kong over extradition to China, and the horrifying brutality with which police – and, apparently, organised criminals – have cracked down on demonstrators. Badiucao has been energised by the campaign and created cartoon after cartoon, variously inspired by the "Lennon Wall", the accoutrements that protestors have carried with them to protect themselves from tear gas and other crowd control measures, and most of all the persona of the city's chief executive Carrie Lam. Lam recently announced the controversial bill on extradition that sparked the unrest will be fully abandoned from consideration.
I drew a pair of cartoons earlier to address this extraordinary political art phenomenon, which featuring China's President Xi Jinping and Hong Kong's Chief executive Carrie Lam covered by sticky notes. pic.twitter.com/ZVEQyINexv
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) July 16, 2019
Like an increasing number of cartoonists from whom we receive testimony, Badiucao has had cause to complain about his work being removed from social media for supposed violations of rules pertaining to content while at the same time receiving threats of violence via those same platforms. The number of abusive messages aimed at Badiucao have spiked this year, perhaps unsurprisingly given his higher profile.
3/Yesterday, Instagram notified me that one of my art was removed from it platform for going against its guidelines. However,in the mean time, Instagram has not addressed my report on death threats against me on its platform for many times. pic.twitter.com/eX0s7lZINO
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) August 18, 2019
Badiucao has also been actively engaged in the debate that has arisen in his adopted nation of Australia, where visiting Chinese students in particular have clashed with those expressing their solidarity with the protesters in Hong Kong. He has publicly asked Twitter to add a "Tank Man" emoji to their platform in time for next year's Tiananmen anniversary and most recently unveiled a flag design inspired by the post-it note covered "Lennon Wall", intended to express a clean break with the past and the hope of a democratic Hong Kong.
1/ #LennonWallFlag My art design for HK. Hope it fly as a new icon for #FreedomHongKong
Great support from Denise Ho @hoccgoomusic ,a gift for her to return HK after Melb meet.
Read more from linkhttps://t.co/YPI8UCFwoA
Get the design via link or QR codehttps://t.co/On79WyJfxY pic.twitter.com/1iaMCPci58
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) September 9, 2019
Please note that this beautiful flag design, like a great many of Badiucao's past cartoons and graphics, is available for download free of charge for use by activists and campaigners everywhere.
WILL YOU FLY THE FLAG FOR HONG KONG?
Teaser Images for #LennonWallFlag performance in Washington DC.
Film version is in editing.
photos credit to @owenschurchill
华盛顿挥舞 #连侬墙旗 #FreedomHK #StandwithHK pic.twitter.com/ymgR5GtRZB
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) September 19, 2019
"Badiucao is an exemplary cartoonist of courage. He was specifically targeted by a censorious regime — in person, online and, most disturbingly of all, via pressure applied to family members — but has persevered and removed the leverage his adversaries thought they could exploit by actively dismantling the anonymity they assumed he cherished most.
Thankfully Badiucao is an Australian resident and so cannot be abused as readily as some other cartoonists seized by China in recent years, most notably Jiang Yefei and Zhang Dongning, both of whom have been arrested, criminalised and essentially disappeared. However he is not immune and believes he has been followed, hacked and even had his home invaded by agents of the state. As China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic it's worth contemplating how far they have come in terms of economic development and international relations, weighed against the minimal progress made on fundamental and individual freedoms.
Reporters Sans Frontieres places China 177th of 180 nations on its Press Freedom Index. Committee to Protect Journalists places it 5th in its Top 10 Most Censored Countries. It is ironic that so many modern Chinese citizens enjoy the trappings of middle-class life — abundant consumer goods, lavish weddings, pampered pets and much foreign travel — while they are denied the simple act of expressing dissatisfaction with their government. China is mighty. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain by loosening its grip on discourse."
Terry Anderson, Acting Executive Director, CRNI
Cartoons by Badiucao as well as the previous Courage in Cartooning Award winner PX Molina are on display at the Sorbonne Art Gallery, Sorbonne University, Paris as part of the Cartooning Global Forum this week and tomorrow evening he is the guest of our friends Index on Censorship at a special screening of China's Artful Dissident in London along with the documentarian Danny Ben-Moshe and introduced by cartoonist Martin Rowson.
Badiucao will receive our Courage in Cartooning Award later in the year; more details to be announced nearer the time.
PX Molina safe, well & settled at last
The CRNI Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award winner 2018 is now an artist in residence in Ithaca, NY.
Pedro X Molina, Nicaraguan cartoonist is the recipient of CRNI's Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award in 2018 & a Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2019.
In the final weeks of 2018 we wrote about the pressure Pedro X Molina was working under as the Ortega regime cracked down on civil protests and critical media outlets, reaching a crescendo with police raids at the Confidencial news outlet. Pedro had cause to fear imminent detention and so took the hard decision to leave his home.
Thanks to the wonderful people at ICORN, he very rapidly found safe haven and we can now confirm that he is the seventh resident artist of Ithaca City of Asylum (ICOA) and has a new position as a visiting international scholar in the Ithaca College Honors Program. Pedro is the first cartoonist to be hosted by ICOA and also their first resident from Latin America.
We hope Pedro's career is now able to fully resume, especially after receiving a Maria Moors Cabot Prize earlier this year. He will join us as a panelist at our event at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, September 28th and share more about his recent experiences.
Cartoons by Pedro as well as our next Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award winner (to be announced) will be displayed at the Sorbonne Art Gallery, Sorbonne University, Paris as part of the Cartooning Global Forum in October.