Indira Freitas Johnson is an award winning artist
and peace activist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally
and is represented in a number of private and public collections. She has been
the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently the prestigious
Governors Award for the Arts.
Her passion to make art part of
everyday life and to involve local communities in the art process is evident in
all her work. Influenced by an artist
father and a mother who was a social activist, Johnson believes strongly that
art and activism are a powerful combination for social change. In 1993 in
response to the rise of ethnic violence the world over, she founded Shanti
Foundation for Peace, which uses the processes of art to help people understand
that their individual action can go a long way to forge lasting peace. Shanti’s
school based projects operate in Evanston and Chicago public schools.
In recent years, Johnson has been involved in many
innovative community art projects and exhibits which have provided an
opportunity to participate and a voice for groups that are seldom heard from in
the world of professional art exhibitions.
These include women from a domestic violence shelter in Chicago, children
who have been affected by leprosy in Bombay and a literacy group in Providence
Rhode Island.
In Johnson’s quest for spiritual growth there is an
inextricable link between her life and work. She says, “The path towards
spiritual growth is not linear. Instead life’s daily occurrences exert their
own push and pull, challenging us at different levels. How we deal with these
challenges helps us accumulate various strengths and energies. Each successful
encounter brings transformation and with it the reality of our connectedness to
the earth and the universe.
