Safe Havens is the annual summit of the artistic freedoms sector, convened each December since 2013. It brings together artists, activists, lawyers, and policy-makers, for a creative international meeting at the intersection of the arts and human rights, fostering alliance-making, capacity-building, and developing innovative and artist-centered best-practice solutions to challenges faced by the sector. We seek to bridge the gap between the local and the global by providing a unique opportunity for artists and those who defend them to network and build collaborations across the entire world.

This year, the Safe Havens Conference is once again being held in-person for three days of artistic interventions, workshops, panel discussions, and network activations – grounded in Mexico City and focused on enhancing networks with and within Latin America. In order to ensure we are as globally inclusive as possible, some sessions will also be held digitally, opening up participation to those not able to travel to the physical meeting.

This year’s summit finds inspiration in the polyphony of social movements and local actors moving forward debates on the environment, gender equality, minority rights, social and cultural rights, and restorative justice, seeking to chart the ways to Resist, Reimagine, Restore. At the heart of our engagements is a commitment to redress historic exclusions that make long-term change impossible, so that our conversations revolve around the voices of women, indigenous, racial and ethnic minorities, and the LGBTIQ+ community.

Mexico City is a unique place to challenge and inspire these conversations. It is the home of numerous community initiatives focused on memory and the fight for justice for disappeared people. Many of its cultural spaces are steeped in the history of colonization, while also bearing witness to the creative resistances of student, indigenous, and feminist movements. Our host country has a rich history of providing refuge for exiled writers – in stark contrast to the violent realities many artistic migrants face today. An audience-participative stage for social transformation through creativity, Mexico City today is a laboratory for art, literature, film, theater, and journalism as means of cultural, social, and public policy change.

HART was appointed to run three regional online sessions for those unable to attend the physical conference over 7-9 December 2022:

1. Asia Reports - 7 December - Theme: The State of the Fight against Arts Censorship in Asia.

Moderator: Kathy Rowland, co-founder & managing editor at ArtsEquator (Singapore).

Artists: Maha Balakrishnan, researcher at Freedom Film Network (Malaysia) & Aicha Grade Rebecca, cultural public policy researcher at Koalisi Seni: the Indonesian Arts Coalition (Indonesia).

2. Middle Eastern - North African Artists' Circle - 8 December - Theme:  Loss of Innocence after the Spring (in Arabic; English simultaneous translation by Beraa Selaj Aldin & Wissam Tayar).

Moderator: Abdullah Al-Kafri, playwright & cultural manager at Ettijahat (Lebanon).

Artists: Badiaa “Neysatu” Bouhrizi, musician (Tunisia) & Lina Sinjab, film-maker (Syria).

3. Sub-Saharan Africa Artists' Circle - 9 December - Theme:Why is Art so Dangerous? Targeting Artists as Truthsayers & Knowledge-Transmitters.

Moderator: Jude Dibia, SH|FT curator, Malmö Fristadsprogram manager, author & LGBTIQ* activist (Nigeria).

Artists: Saifullah “Dr Pure” Ibrahim, rapper & radio personality (Nigeria) & Syowia Kyambi, interdisciplinary installation artist & curator (Kenya).