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PARTICIPANTS, COLLABORATORS AND GUESTS

AND MANY MORE CREATIVE FIGURES, CULTURAL PIONEERS, BUSINESS LEADERS AND VISIONARIES AROUND THE WORLD

MICHAEL DOUGLAS

MICHAEL DOUGLAS

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liberatum

Global Multimedia and Multidisciplinary Cultural Organization Empowering and Inspiring Minds to Promote Social Change and Raise Consciousness

The universe is your mother ❤️

The universe is your mother ❤️

Grateful to be here on this planet. Thank you @bra

Grateful to be here on this planet. Thank you @braziliansweetheart What a beautiful day. Liberatum weekend.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐑

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄

Rosa Luzia Lunardi (85) is embraced by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza, at Viva Bem care home, São Paulo, Brazil.

This was the first hug Rosa had received in five months. In March, care homes across the country had closed their doors to all visitors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, preventing millions of Brazilians from visiting their elderly relatives. Carers were ordered to keep physical contact with the vulnerable to an absolute minimum.

At Viva Bem, a simple invention, ‘The Hug Curtain', allowed people to hug each other once again. The new coronavirus had first appeared in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, and by January 2020 had begun to spread around the world. On 11 March, the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. The disease—transmitted mainly via close contact, respiratory droplets, and aerosols—could be fatal, and people over the age of 70 were one of the groups considered most vulnerable to the disease.

Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, dismissed claims about the severity of the pandemic and the danger posed by the virus, undermined quarantine measures adopted at state level, and encouraged Brazilians to continue working to keep the economy afloat. Brazil ended 2020 with one of the worst records globally in dealing with the virus, with some 7.7 million reported cases and 195,000 deaths. - World Press Photo @worldpressphoto

Photographer 📸 @madsnissenphoto

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐌

“Liberatum stands apart for its hip quotient and boundary-crossing ambition.” – THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Culture King” – GQ

“The G-20 of culture” – VOGUE

“Legendary” – THE GUARDIAN

“Manages to persuade the great and the good of the arts to turn up and perform.” – WALLPAPER

“Some of the world’s biggest names in culture will be landing in Hong Kong next month.” – THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“It’s fascinating to hear such a broad range of creative luminaries break down the nature of creativity and inspiration and hear common themes emerge from the divergent perspectives.” – FAST COMPANY

“In a world of conferences, festivals, summits and symposiums, it can be difficult—and time-consuming—to sort through the masses. Liberatum has worked to change that, by creating multidisciplinary cultural moments that wrap diverse artistic endeavors into one.” – ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST

𝐁𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐈𝐍 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒

These endless days of the pandemic have given me a sense of nostalgia. Looking back at the early days of my adult life, I realise what a bold risk taker I used to be. I dressed as I wanted. Used to dream up new ventures practically every day and call people in positions of power I didn’t know to support my plans. In countries far, far away that I hadn’t even ever visited. Audacious? Precocious? Who cares. It worked.

People love to label you to make you question yourself and put you down, or tell you it’s probably not the right path for you. Of course along the way, I experienced failures and I lost some opportunities but I always worked hard. With total dedication. I was never one to be called lazy or indifferent. To do everything with passion was my mission. There were some culture vultures too with ‘money and status’ from London to Istanbul who stole my work and copied it shamelessly. You know who you are naughty boys and girls of the fashion world. I was never part of any club because I suppose I was never invited. They just simply couldn’t grasp where to put me or what to make of me.

Thank goodness. Sticking to little circles and feeling self important is not my pudding. Today I recognise deeply that I was always doing it my way and I certainly don’t intend to stop now. That’s what Liberatum is. A cultural playground to unite freaks like me. To spread the importance of diversity. Stop Asian Hate? Stop every kind of hate, man! I have been an ambassador’s consort, a homeless person sleeping on park benches, a curator, filmmaker, producer, award winning whatever, mistress, mister, gay, transvestite, bisexual, exotic, cross dressing joke, serious businessman, diplomat of culture, creative maverick, depressed, miserable, happy.. it’s all an illusion. Just be YOU!

And don’t give a damn what others say about you but still be kind to them. How many times do you wash that mask you wear for the world? And how many masks do you have? Do you like who’s underneath?❣️ - Pablo Ganguli

𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍

𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒

Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.

True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.

We are complex beings who wake up every day and fight against being labeled and diminished with stereotypes and characterizations that don’t reflect our fullness. Yet when we don’t risk standing on our own and speaking out, when the options laid before us force us into the very categories we resist, we perpetuate our own disconnection and loneliness. When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.
- Brené Brown

Photographer 📸 Anastasia Kuba

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄

The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations, and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single player.

Realize that in modern society, the downside risk is not that large. Even personal bankruptcy can wipe the debts clean in good ecosystems. I’m most familiar with Silicon Valley, but generally, people will forgive failures as long as you were honest and made a high-integrity effort. There’s not really that much to fear in terms of failure, and so people should take on a lot more accountability than they do.

Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.

If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point. If I say he’s attractive, then somebody else is unattractive. Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering.
- Eric Jorgenson

Photographer 📸 @pauloctavious

𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐒

𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄

Those most oppressed do not owe you thanks for acting in allyship (it’s just the right thing to do), but we deserve gratitude for showing you the way. For teaching you, holding space for you, and leading the charge toward our collective liberation. Gratitude means crediting our words and work, remunerating us, and otherwise supporting us physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically. We don’t need you to be a voice for the voiceless, because nobody is without a (metaphorical) voice. We just need you to pass the damn mic.

Spirit animal— An appropriated concept assigned to the sacred rituals of some Indigenous tribes by colonial forces. The tribes that do have a concept related to a “spirit animal” have specific traditions that go along with it, as the spirit serves a specific function in their belief system. Not to be used by anyone outside of such tribes. Try “animal friend” or “spirit guide.

You have a right to your rage, and you can still lean into joy. For those comprising oppressed identities, our joy is part of the revolution. Learning how to cultivate it, keep it, demand it, and own it. Without fear, without guilt, without shame. Joy is our birthright. Each and every one of us, especially those of us who have been conditioned to feel unworthy of it. - Rachel Ricketts

Photographer 📸 @kennylemes 👧🏽 @la.pichi_

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄

You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.

You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.

You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.

You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.

- Frida Kahlo

𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐎𝐌 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐅𝐀

𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐎𝐌 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓, 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐕𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐒

The heart is capable of sacrifice. So is the vagina. The heart is able to forgive and repair. It can change it's shape to let us in. It can expand to let us out. So can the vagina. It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world. So can the vagina. I was there in the room. I remember.

The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure.

When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet.

It's a totally ridiculous, completely unsexy word. If you use it during sex, trying to be politically correct-- "Darling, could you stroke my vagina?"-- you kill the act right there. I'm worried about vaginas, what we call them and don't call them.
- Eve Ensler

Photographer 📸 @olhardepaulina_

𝐅𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅-𝐋𝐎

𝐅𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅-𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification.

If a woman loves her own body, she doesn't grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights. It's true what they say about women: Women are insatiable. We are greedy. Our appetites do need to be controlled if things are to stay in place. If the world were ours too, if we believed we could get away with it, we would ask for more love, more sex, more money, more commitment to children, more food, more care.

These sexual, emotional, and physical demands would begin to extend to social demands: payment for care of the elderly, parental leave, childcare, etc. The force of female desire would be so great that society would truly have to reckon with what women want, in bed and in the world. - Naomi Wolf

Photographer 📸 @milkandhannah

𝐒𝐄𝐗, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐂𝐎

When a Mexican curator invited Pieter Hugo over to make new work, “His only brief to me,” says the photographer, “was that it be about sex and mortality”. So began a two-year inquiry into the country’s complex relationship with life, death and the afterlife.

Mexico, Hugo says, is often an anarchic and surreal place. “It is such a visual culture, an incredibly garish culture,” he says. “It’s flamboyant, rich, saturated, and it has an amazing lexicon of imagery, one completely made up of its own vocabulary.” Yet it is in many ways defined by the “dark undercurrent of the narco-state”, he also notes. “Mexico has a bloody history and that’s been compounded by the narco-state, which is ubiquitous. There’s a constant threat of violence that permeates all social strata, and it’s often a very visual display, a very visual manifestation. You will often see bodies with limbs dismembered hanging off of highways. Everyone is influenced by that in some way or another.”

As a result, the country is rich with graveside rituals, ancestor- honouring festivals and morbid rites of passage, each of which comes with its own formal and highly decorative code of dress. Mexico, Hugo notes, is the number-one consumer of hair gel in the world. “They look for any excuse to get dressed up and have a festival,” he says. “There’s one every second day, a pageant or a performance. It’s very embedded in their culture.” It is normal, then, to assume exaggerated characters, to escape one’s life to play a fantastical role – even while in doing so one is paying homage to the dead. It’s mourning as performance. “Life and death are very close, very accepted, but very contradictory. I found it difficult to reconcile the narco reality with the people I met there. I very rarely encountered any sort of aggression, even when I met people who were directly involved in this violent narco world.” - @bjp1854

Photographer 📸 @pieter.hugo.official

𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐄

Representations of older transgender people are nearly absent from our culture and those that do exist are often one-dimensional. For over five years, photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States creating To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults. Seeking subjects whose lived experiences exist within the complex intersections of gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and geographic location, they traveled from coast to coast, to big cities and small towns, documenting the life stories of this important but largely underrepresented group of older adults.

The featured individuals share a wide variety of life narratives spanning the last ninety years, offering an important historical record of transgender experience and activism in the United States. The resulting portraits and narratives provide a nuanced view into the struggles and joys of growing older as a transgender person and offer a poignant reflection on what it means to live authentically despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

To Survive on This Shore was published as a hardcover book by Kehrer Verlag (first edition 2018, second edition 2019) and is available from Indie Bound, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon. It was also published as a limited edition portfolio designed for university art museums and other teaching collections. - Vanessa Fabbre and Jess T Dugan

Photographer 📸 @jesstdugan

𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋

Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.

Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable.

My recommendation: don’t be special; don’t be unique. Redefine your metrics in mundane and broad ways. Choose to measure yourself not as a rising star or an undiscovered genius. Choose to measure yourself not as some horrible victim or dismal failure. Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator.

The narrower and rarer the identity you choose for yourself, the more everything will seem to threaten you. For that reason, define yourself in the simplest and most ordinary ways possible.This often means giving up some grandiose ideas about yourself: that you’re uniquely intelligent, or spectacularly talented, or intimidatingly attractive, or especially victimized in ways other people could never imagine. This means giving up your sense of entitlement and your belief that you’re somehow owed something by this world.
- Mark Manson

Photographer 📸 @nirarieli

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍

Womanhood — noun: The state or condition of being a woman. Women considered collectively.

Through a series of interviews and portraits this project explores different aspects and complex issues related to womanhood with a more intimate view.

All kinds of women open on their realities and talk about topics like gender, motherhood, abuse, mental health, abortion, rape, menstruation, body hair and much more. Each of them are photographed in their own environment depicting who they really are in the most personal and natural way possible.

These women are on a journey of self-discovery. We aim to give them a safe space to share their own reflection on the deep and beautiful subject that is womanhood. This award-winning project, exclusively shot on film, also stems from the need to break from the constant flow of pictures only suggesting the desirability and the objectification of the ‘perfect’ women. Created by Cassandra Cacheiro (Photography) & Sara Hini (Artistic Direction).

📸 @sara_hini @the_womanhood_project

𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐄

Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures. None of us is perfect. In marriage we do not always do the right thing. We have sometimes done and said hurtful things to our spouses. We cannot erase the past.

We can only confess it and agree that it was wrong. We can ask for forgiveness and try to act differently in the future. Having confessed my failure and asked forgiveness, I can do nothing more to mitigate the hurt it may have caused my spouse.

When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness. If I choose justice and seek to pay her back or make her pay for her wrongdoing, I am making myself the judge and her the felon. Intimacy becomes impossible. If, however, I choose to forgive, intimacy can be restored. Forgiveness is the way of love.

Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.

Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving. That kind of love requires effort and discipline. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction.
- Gary Chapman

Photographer 📸 @valeria_sigal

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐖

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇

Kindness is the greatest wealth of all. Small acts of kindness last longer than a lifetime. This lesson, that kindness and generosity and faith in your fellow man are more important than money, is the first and greatest lesson my father ever taught me. And in this way he will always be with us, and always live forever.

Here is what I learned. Happiness does not fall from the sky; it is in your hands. Happiness comes from inside yourself and from the people you love. And if you are happy and healthy, you are a millionaire.

Your efforts today will affect people you will never know. It is your choice whether that effect is positive or negative. You can choose every day, every minute, to act in a way that may uplift a stranger, or else drag them down. The choice is easy. And it is yours to make.
- Eddie Jaku

Photographer 📸 @edfreemanphoto

𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 I am woman just like you.

𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍

I am woman just like you.

Yesterday I had a moment that I wanted to share with I felt as it came and went it was a time of patience, growth, education and self awareness and I wanted you to know these moments are our chance to grab onto change

I went to dress myself for the day, the dog was crying for biscuits, I heard the word “ mummy look” about 15 times in the space of 20 seconds. The jam toast was smothered on the floor and the washing mountain was close to the hight of my ceiling

As I ran to get the potty for my daughter to go to the toilet, I could feel my lady time coming on ( it never comes on a regular date) and as I bent down to pop her on the toilet I felt the warmth of my period fall into my underwear and the warm trickle of her wee splashing my toes, neither of us made it to the toilet

Covered in pee, blood and a crying dog in the background I looked at my daughter and said well never mind these things happen baby girl

She looked up at me grabbed my cheeks and said “ Mumma, I think you’re doing great Mumma”.

In this moment, the messy moment I chose to take the opportunity to use it for a few things

I spent some time educating my daughter on what the “ red stuff” was in my undies that she couldn’t help but glare at ( imagine this being the first time seeing your mum with bloody of any sort on her. We talked about what it was and how it got there.

We talked about listing to our bodies and getting to the toilet earlier instead of holding onto our wee and ignoring the signals our bodies send us

As we showered and cleaned up the mess and flopped onto the couch to catch a breath I realised that what could have been a freaky situation for this little girl and her stressed out frantic mummy, we learnt a little something about ourselves along the way

Let’s make it clear to ourselves and the women to come after us that there is no shame in what our bodies do and address the conversation rather than leave them confused and unsure from young because they didn’t get answers to questions when the opportunity arose, these are our moments to change the ways and Unlearn the beliefs women have been made to believe. - @shani.chantel

𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎

𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐒

Hating our bodies is something that we learn, and it sure as hell is something that we can unlearn. We can’t see the beauty in everything that we are because we’ve been taught to first see everything that we’re not.

It's genius, really: saturate the media with ideal bodies, convince women that they can only be happy if they look like those bodies, sell women products promising to give them those bodies, and when those products don't work, tell the women that it's their fault for not having enough willpower, and sell them more.

If women begin to achieve the current ideal body, change the ideal so that they'll need to keep buying products (that don't work) to attain the impossible. Rinse and repeat.

They go home rolling in their billions and we're left with shattered self-esteem, empty bank accounts, wasted years, and useless products, and we still blame ourselves instead of seeing it for the manipulation that it is. And all along the whole thing rests on that one big lie, that your body needs to look a certain way in order for you to be happy. We bought it. We still buy it. -
Megan Jayne Crabbe

Photographer 📸 @juliashoots 👧🏻 @angelinaduplisea

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