For years, fear and social norms kept many women in one of Asia’s top surfing destinations away from the water. Then they started riding the waves.

Vibrantly combining gestures and mime, Visual Vernacular helps the Deaf and hearing communities to connect and communicate without words.

A growing conservation burial movement is challenging the funeral industry’s environmental footprint while healing the land.

Awra Amba, a picturesque village surrounded by rolling verdant hills, is a vision of a world of equal work.

New and old ways to share wedding outfits and other supplies are slowly changing mindsets — while keeping the exuberance of the celebrations alive.

On unique tours, blind and sighted guests climb mountains, salsa dance, sail and even skydive — all side by side, as equals.

In a country at war, women of all ages and professions are learning construction skills and defying stereotypes.

From specialized excursions to accessible trails, travel experiences are increasingly geared toward meeting a broader range of needs.

As new social spaces replace the pubs and bingo halls of yore, groups focused around physical activities offer a laid-back way to connect.

In our daily lives, we don’t often openly discuss our feelings about death and dying. So where can people go to have those conversations?

Scenes from an ecstatic celebration in New York City.

Other places could learn from the island country, where measures like audio description and braille surtitling have become standard practice.

Though increasingly common for movies and TV, the practice has yet to become widespread in live performance venues. Gravity Access is trying to change that.

While Black artists often top the charts, minorities are heavily underrepresented in music management. The B-Side aims to change that.

First Nations architect Wanda Dalla Costa’s designs reflect Indigenous culture, proving that buildings can be much more than “little boxes.”

At the French city of Lille’s Palais des Beaux-Arts, “museo-therapy” draws on the power of art to improve health and wellbeing.

“Scientists reach brains, but artists touch the heart. As musicians, what we can do best is communicate using emotion.”

With its monthly repair cafes and nearly 5,000 items to lend, Buffalo’s Tool Library is chipping away at throwaway consumerism.

In workshops that combine self-defense with lessons on communication, young women build strength and confidence.

Amid the rise of remote work, “body doubling” has been helping those with ADHD — and those who just want more support — get things done.

The tours help the guides embrace the next chapter of their lives, while showing tourists a hidden side of the city they’re visiting.

What started as an off-the-cuff idea at a senior home has become a successful microbrewery — and a way for residents to stay social and engaged.

Lots of kids feel socially isolated — especially at lunchtime. A national movement is working to change that.

When a family rents a tree in a pot, they can welcome the same live evergreen into their home year after year — no chopping required.

National parks have historically been portrayed — and managed — as pristine, unpeopled landscapes. Peru’s Cordillera Azul offers another way.

With an emphasis on mindfulness and human connection, New York’s legendary theater is using culture to cultivate well-being.

Chatbots and other new technology could play a key role in preserving languages that are at risk of dying out.

In Arizona, a remarkable repository helps Native American cultures thrive while boosting bird populations.

Shows like Molly of Denali give parents a way into climate discussions that can assuage anxiety and even inspire hope.

Cheap, disposable clothing is causing an environmental disaster. Now, the home of haute couture is chipping in for its citizens’ garment repairs.

Rohingyatographer is documenting refugee life in Bangladesh through refugees’ own eyes and lenses — and the world is taking notice.

The most rewarding travel experiences leave room for the unexpected — and genuinely benefit communities.

Across the world’s largest democracy, old-school radio stations transmit critical information that enriches — and sometimes saves — local lives.

A new book explores how a global shift toward long-term thinking can solve the problems caused by our here-and-now mindsets.

Custom-designed museum programs are alleviating depression, fostering connection and even lowering cortisol levels in people with dementia.

Forget pants made of car tires — to truly make fashion more sustainable, a collaboration between dozens of brands is slashing the industry’s carbon footprint.

The Manchester Museum asked 30 community members to curate its new South Asia gallery — the latest cultural institution to hand over control to those it represents.

Advocates shining a light on ecologically responsible bouquets want to do for the floral industry what locavorism did for food.

How an unusual ritual led to fewer child marriages, less flooding, a boom in girls’ education — and a cultural transformation.

In a country where half of all citizens visit the library every month, Oodi Library provides a blueprint for fostering human convergence.

Scenes from our Paris-based correspondent’s epic three-month road trip across these “dizzyingly paradoxical” United States.

Cavernous and strictly climate controlled, museums are notoriously wasteful — but a few are leading a sustainability renaissance.

The Mediterranean is the world’s most overfished sea — and a proving ground for how art can elevate conservation.

Recognizing that many public holidays are pegged to Western and Christian traditions, companies are taking a more inclusive approach to days off.

A new local music venue proves that when communities invest in themselves they don’t need to settle for Walgreens and Applebees.

As a travel editor, my job is to hopscotch across the globe. When I decided to keep my feet on the ground, I saw it in a whole new way.

With a cast clad in eBay hand-me-downs, Love Island UK is encouraging viewers to embrace sustainable glamor. Welcome to socially conscious trash TV.

Anyone can receive a postcard from this city rumored to be at the edge of the earth — and support a post-tourism economy in the process.

Advocates are inserting storylines into TV and radio shows to promote behaviors that could lead to social change. Just don’t call it infotainment.

In Düsseldorf, revenues from sales of works by famous artists are used to buy apartments for those who need them most.

A new reality series is using the HGTV method to tackle Florida’s water supply issues.

From the archives of We Are Not Divided, three stories that look at our ability to bridge our divides — and find reason for optimism.

For thousands of refugees, integrating in Germany is made easier by a local mentor.

The Games have become an unwieldy, budget-busting affair. Allowing multiple cities — or even countries — to co-host could fix that.

From the archives of We Are Not Divided, we revisit three stories that explore our surprising — and encouraging — openness to others’ points of view.

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.