In Portugal, the human need to log off and relax is now protected by law.

On the last Saturday of each month, everyone stops what they’re doing and works together to improve their communities. It’s called Umuganda.

With branches in 80 countries, the Human Library allows you to borrow a person — a rugby player, a refugee, a sex worker — and ask them anything you want.

In a country where sexual harassment is common, gatherings where women can cut loose without fear are a welcome respite.

Three U.S. states have legalized “natural organic reduction,” in which the dead are returned to the earth to help nourish its growth. 

How does a young generation wracked by civil war and ebola move forward? In one African surfing town, atop the perfect wave.

With elections approaching, the stakes are high. One organization is making sure journalists listen to women.

A digitization project will ensure that a series of 20th century guides for LGBTQ travelers aren’t lost to history.

Involving local groups means newly arrived refugees can be greeted by someone whose culture they recognize as their own.

Cities across Canada are canceling Canada Day celebrations to contemplate the country’s darkest chapter. Is this the dawn of more nuanced national holidays?

Rites of passage prepare us to transition into new phases of life. Ritual4Return ensures leaving prison is no exception.

“Many of the people who were abolitionists pointed to the profound music we had created here as a sign of humanity and one of the reasons they argued that we were not to remain enslaved.”

“When a woman places an ‘order’ and gives us her address, that’s the signal for us to send the police.”

Rather than fighting anti-gay faith leaders, a group in Kenya spends years cultivating relationships with them — and converts them into allies.

In a sports world fraught with controversial mascots, the Seattle Seahawks logo isn’t just accepted — it’s beloved.

A groundbreaking new rule aims to let people speak freely and without fear of discrimination.

Inside the lending system for elegant attire that helps low-income women build social capital.

With only 2,000 fluent speakers left, the tribe wants those who love the culture to help preserve it.

Arturo Pratticò saw young people working for the mob. What if he could make them chefs instead?

Thanks to an amazingly effective program, many farmworkers no longer need to deal with this type of exploitation.

Iceland passed a similar law 20 years ago, and turned parents into more equal partners.

She fought a brutal ritual with love – and changed a culture.

A rowdy, opinionated nation of 330 million requires a special kind of bond.

Along a ditch that separates the U.S. from Canada, a very 2020 romance is taking root.

The ability to fight with love instead of rage is what makes us human.

What the New York borough that voted for Trump taught me about the messy business of bridging divides.

A child of Mexico City’s nightclubs is putting a spotlight on what connects us.

In our final “Bridging Divides” video, a young BLM activist and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement connect across a lifetime of struggle.

Both countries have a shameful history of oppression. One of them is facing up to it.

Even as young people eschew religion, some are forming unexpected bonds with sisters of faith through a shared commitment to social justice.

She’s a gay rights activist. He’s an evangelical Christian. In our new video series, they explain why “impossible” friendships can be our most valuable.

In this moving video, two groups that have long struggled to connect finally let their guards down.

How two Canadians, united by an act of oppression, are transforming reconciliation into art.

An American and a Canadian artist explore what it means to be Black in a pandemic.

In an era of ideological rancor, a few brave souls are going out of their way to befriend their political opposites.

When Congolese refugees moved to New York, they brought their old rivalries with them. Then they put their strife on stage.

Yes, I encountered stigma, but also empathy and understanding – in part, because so many Americans know someone who’s been locked up.

Neuroscientists have determined that creation can keep you from going Covid crazy, so we asked you to send us the art you’ve made under lockdown. It’s amazing.

Not yet old enough to vote, a new vanguard of teen writers is nonetheless fixing the publishing industry’s representation problem.

The coronavirus is creating an explosion of quarantined online performance that is unscripted, unshowered and surprisingly uplifting.

Meet the new generation of talent transforming music’s whitest genre.

A theatrical re-imagining of American independence, right where it’s needed most.

Prisons with art programs release people back into the world who are more stable, and far less likely to return. Why don’t the programs exist everywhere?

New moms in difficult situations sometimes find it tough to connect with their babies. Carnegie Hall is helping change that with one of the simplest, most innate tools in the mothering toolbox: lullabies.

A collectivist spirit permeates this island nation’s art scene, where artists supporting artists has helped the creative ecology thrive.

This bustling Nigerian city is bursting at the seams with art fairs, biennials and galleries. Now, some of the artists who left to find work elsewhere are returning home.

Not long ago I ended up at a biennial in Kochi, a little Indian city with a thriving art scene. Could this be a place where artists can make a living?

It may be more art than science, but there appear to be a few basic conditions that can help give rise to places where artists can make a living.

Is the art world in the midst of a vast diffusion? These days, creative ecologies are proliferating, and the center appears to be everywhere and nowhere.