This weekend, the exhibition Neunte Kunst - Cartooning for Peace opened in the Center of Persecuted Arts in Solingen Germany. The exhibition, created and curated by Jürgen Kaumkötter and CM cartoonist Talal Nayer shows the work of a number of international artists, including many CM members.

The exhibition will be on display until September 16, so if you find yourself in the area, we highly recommend you take a look.

Neunte Kunst - Cartooning for Peace
Zentrum für verfolgte Künste in Solingen, Germany
Curators: Talal Nayer Talal and Jürgen Kaumkötter
Cooperation-parter: Cartooning For Peace
More information

Participating artists:
Agim Sulaj, Anthony Garner, Aristides Hernandez Guerrero (ARES), Constantin Sunnerberg, Constantin Pavel, Darko Drljevic, Ernst Volland, Firuz Kutal, Ivailo Tsvetkov, Vladimir Kazanevsky, Luc Descheemaeker, Luc Vernimmen, Oleksiy Kustovsky, Paco Baca, Peter Nieuwendijk, Tjeerd Royaards, Nayer Talal, Michel Kichka, Victor Bogorad

Olivier Ploux is a graphic designer and illustrator from France. Visit his website to see more of his work.

This year, the world celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Universal Declaration of Human rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 and is a milestone document in the history of human rights. It was the first document setting out the fundamental human rights to be universally protected and the Declaration recognizes the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Around the world, we see that human rights are increasingly under pressures and space for civil society, journalists and cartoonists is shrinking. It is therefore imperative that we continue to work together to make sure that the next generation is educated about their rights and the Declaration and what better way to do that than through cartoons.

The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands together with the Cartoon Movement wish to celebrate this momentous occasion by launching a cartoon contest.

The project

This project is not only open to Cartoon Movement cartoonists, but to all cartoonists around the world. Everyone is invited to draw a cartoon for every article (or multiple articles) of the Universal Declaration. The cartoon can relate to any aspect of the respective article. Multiple cartoons will be drawn per article and an open voting process will then determine what cartoon best represents the content of the right contained in the article.

Once all the cartoons have been prepared, an online platform (Facebook) will be created. On this platform all cartoons will be displayed and OHCHR and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in collaboration with the Cartoon Movement and several schools around the world, will ensure that younger people (age 11 – 19 years) vote for the best cartoon for each article. The cartoons will also be distributed via the respective social media channels of OHCHR and the Kingdom of the Netherlands to invite everyone who is interested to vote to do so. When several cartoons per article receive a similar number of votes the organizers of this project will help select the winning cartoon.

The winning cartoon per article will be printed and an art exhibition will be organized in The Hague or Geneva in the fall of 2018. This exhibition will be co-sponsored by the OHCHR, The Netherlands and the Cartoon Movement.

Further instructions

As the aim of this project is to reach out to younger generations and raise awareness about the importance of the UDHR, it is important for the cartoons to be:

-Understandable for younger people between 11 – 19 years of age;

-Understandable for people with different cultural and political backgrounds from all regions of the world and therefore not limited to one conflict, world leader or situation;

-Understandable for persons that do not speak English (or do not speak the language used).

-Add the article you are illustrating clearly in the title or description of your cartoon.

-IMPORTANT: As the objective is to unite around the Declaration and illustrate its principles, the cartoons should not mention any specific countries, political figures or issues that would go against the values of the United Nations. The organizers reserve the rights to preselect for the voting process only the cartoons complying with these recommendations.

Submitting cartoons

Cartoons can be upload to our project newsroom UN Human Rights. If you are not a registered member of Cartoon Movement you will need to make an account. After you have an account you can upload your cartoons via this link, selecting the subroom 'UN Human Rights' from the drop-down menu.

This project will open for submissions between Tuesday June 12 and Friday July 20.

Prizes

For the exhibition 30 cartoons will be determined by popular vote as best reflecting the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For each selected cartoon the artist will receive 100 euro.

Articles of the UDHR (shortened)

Art. 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Art. 2: Everyone is entitled to all rights and freedoms in the declaration, without discrimination.

Art. 3: Everyone has the right to life.

Art. 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

Art. 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Art. 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Art. 7: All are equal before the law.

Art. 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals.

Art. 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrests, detention or exile.

Art. 10: Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent tribunal.

Art. 11: Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Art. 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy.

Art. 13: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement.

Art. 14: Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

Art. 15: Everyone has the right to a nationality.

Art. 16: Men and women of full age, without limitations, have the right to marry and to found a family.

Art. 17: Everyone has the right to own property.

Art. 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Art. 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Art. 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Art. 21: Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country.

Art. 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security.

Art. 23: Everone has the right to work, to free choice of employment and to just and favourable conditions of work.

Art. 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure.

Art. 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.

Art. 26: Everyone has the right to education.

Art. 27: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community.

Art. 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration can be fully realized.

Art. 29: Everone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

Art. 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity aimed at the destruction of any of the rights set forth herein.

For more information, including the full text of the Universal Declaration, please visit this page.

For more information of the campaign on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, please visit www.standup4humanrights.org

By Tjeerd Royaards

It’s great when a cartoon goes viral. It’s what every cartoonist hopes for: to have your image reach a massive audience, and to hopefully get them thinking on the subject you want to draw attention to with your cartoon.

Two weeks ago, I was very fortunate to have one of my cartoons go viral. Mamadou Gassama, an undocumented immigrant in France, rescued a small child hanging precariously off a balcony. After this heroic act, Mamoudou was (deservedly) rewarded with citizenship. Although I did not want to take away from his heroics I did want to create a cartoon that highlighted the way we think about immigrants in general. We seem to only accept them when they behave like Superman.

And it seems the image struck a nerve. In the end, I received close to 50K retweets and 75K likes on my personal account alone. It’s safe to assume the cartoon has been seen by millions. The cartoon was picked up by many, many media outlets, the vast majority of whom did not ask for permission, nor have they offered any financial compensation for the use of this image.

It’s symbolic of the life as a cartoonist in the digital age: our audience is bigger than ever, our earnings at an all-time low. This cartoon got me 75,000 likes, but only about 175 euro in reprint fees. Republications include many media websites, TV shows and even a Dutch newspaper. Het Parool printed a Twitter screenshot because I wasn’t willing to provide them with a high resolution cartoon for free. They now refuse payment stating they are merely 'quoting' the cartoon.

I took some time to chase some of the bigger online media down to ask them to purchase a license for use. A week later, I have yet to receive a response from all but a few.

Dutch newspaper Parool reprints the cartoon after my explicit request to buy a license.

Examples include Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and French TV:

A French TV show features my work without asking me.

I do not want to seem like a whining artist, and I'm certainly not looking to get rich, but this practice of using content for free is so wide-spread that it’s threatening not only my livelihood, but that of all creators anywhere who post their stuff online. I need Twitter to connect with my audience and I love it when people share my work. But is it so unreasonable of me to expect media companies to pay a reasonable fee when they want to use my work? They’re not only profiting from my work in terms of eyeballs, likes and clicks, when they post it to their website they are also generating ad revenue with my work, none of which will ever line my pockets.

The saddest aspect of this practice is that media are actively contributing to their own demise. Not paying for good journalistic content means that professional content makers like myself will be forced out of business. It seems that while content is king, content makers are doomed to a life of destitution.

Good migrant, bad migrant? pic.twitter.com/SDGxx0BTrt

— Tjeerd Royaards (@Royaards) May 29, 2018

Glen Le Lievre is a renowned cartoonist from Australia. His drawings have appeared in Time, MAD magazine, Playboy, Private Eye, Reader’s Digest and The New Yorker. He was Australian Cartoonists' Association 2016 Cartoonist Of The Year. He is a contributing artist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age. Check out his website to see more of his work, including his excellent animated gifs.

On June 2, the awards were announced for the 13th edition of World Press Cartoon in Portugal. We are extremely proud that a number of our cartoonists were among the prize winners, most notably Italian cartoonist Marilena Nardi, who received the Grand Prize. She is the first woman to receive this honor.

Other winners from the Cartoon Movement network include Luc Descheemaeker who won first prize in the category Caricature, and Cau Gomez who received second prize in the category Editorial Cartoon. In the category Gag Cartoon Mello won second prize and Fadi Abou Hassan won third prize. This year was the first year that cartoons appearing in online publications were allowed, and we are extra proud that the cartoon by Fadi Abou Hassan was one published on Cartoon Movement.

Congrats to the winners! To see them all, visit the WPC website.

Gran Prize - Marilena Nardi

First prize Caricature - Luc Descheemaeker

Second prize Editorial Cartoon - Cau Gomez

Second prize Gag cartoon - Mello

Third prize Gag cartoon - Fadi Abou Hassan