The KidsFest will include kids-run, hands-on activities, plus participatory events from Art and Resistance Through Education, Ray of Hope Project and Groove With Me–three art groups working especially with children and human rights. The Festival will take place March 3-5, 2017. Tickets for the KidsFEst are FREE! Participant information at www.dixonplace.org.

The International Human Rights Art Festival, the first human rights art festival in the long and vibrant history of New York City’s cultural scene, will bring together more than 70 artists producing more than 40 events, all of them oriented toward advocacy. The KidsFest will use hands-on activities to introduce children to using art for socially-transformative purpose. Rigorously curated for quality as well as content, the event includes some of New York’s most passionate rising artist-activists.  It will raise social, cultural and political issues, as well as offering gentle, positive responses through thoughtful beauty and political and social thinking.

Participants of KidsFest include Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), founded and run by Marissa Gutierrez-Vicario, uses art, design, and technology to empower young people to develop creative solutions and bring awareness to local and global human rights challenges; The Ray of Hope Project uses African American spirituals to shed light on the combined anti-slavery efforts of blacks and whites in 19th century New England and now includes nine musicians and actors who incorporate African American spirituals with live music in their participatory programs; Groove With Me is a dance studio that offers free classes to girls in Harlem as a safe and enduring space for girls to express themselves and discover their capacities in a stable environment.

During the KidsFest a group of four children will be running a series of other activities for children including creating drawings and letters to send imprisoned female conscientious objectors around the world; face painting, human rights scavenger hunt, frost your own peace/human rights cupcakes; Parents and children will proclaim the rights of all children everywhere through the sculptures they build together.  Themes will be provided; Workshop will include stencil making, puppet building and sign creation.

International Human Rights Art Festival takes place at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie St, NYC) from March 3-5, 2017.

Dixon Place is located at 161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), in Manhattan’s Lower East Side (By subway: B/D to Grand, F to 2nd Ave, J/Z to Bowery, 6 to Spring St, M to Essex St).

Tickets are $10-25 (except select events such as the KidsFest, which are free) and are now available online at www.dixonplace.org.