We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tom Block a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tom, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Founding the International Human Rights Art Festival (ihraf.org) has undoubtedly been the most far-reaching and meaningful project that I have worked on in my 30-year creative career. Growing out of my own activist work as a painter, playwright and author, it represents the implementation of an activist art model I developed called “Prophetic Activist Art.” This model, published as a manifesto/handbook as “Prophetic Activist Art: Handbook for a Spiritual Revolution” (Centre for Human Ecology, Glasgow, 2014), outlines a specific manner of using art to spur social transformation, as an extension of both spiritual and artistic practice. Prophetic Activist Art brings together medieval conceptions of prophecy, art’s historic purpose to raise the human gaze to the ineffable and our contemporary respect for individual agency, to propose a mysticism of action, with art as the regenerating force. This theory moves beyond using activist art simply to shock the audience, or raise awareness of social issues, to providing specific and quantifiable social change.
I implemented this model in my own work, in projects such as the Human Rights Painting Project (in conjunction with Amnesty International), Cousins Public Art Project (installing art/text panels in public places highlighting the similarities between all spiritual paths), Shalom/Salaam Project, excavating the positive history between Muslim and Jews in history, culture and spirituality, and numerous other projects. All of these were art, research and writing projects: I exhibited artwork more than 150 times around the world, published six books on specific topics grown out of the projects and have had numerous plays exploring these same ideas produced in NY and Washington DC. I quickly learned how powerful this work could be, as my first book on one of the activist subjects, “Shalom/Salaam: A Story of a Mystical Fraternity,” garnered this review from Dr. Sallama Shaker, Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Egypt and Egyptian Ambassador to Canada. “Block’s narrative is an eye-opener for peace activists and politicians who are in search for genuine peace built on mutual respect and full acknowledgment of contemporary wrongs committed in the name of God in order to avoid what the author describes as ”further calamities in the Middle East”. This is a ‘must-read’ book.” The book was also published in Turkey, and caused me to be one of two invited Jewish participants at the first-ever interfaith conference held by al-Azhar University in Egypt.
During nearly 25 years of activist artist work across a variety of media and issue areas, I met hundreds of passionate creators with a strong desire to use their work for the common good, across issues from climate change and LGBTQ rights to women’s empowerment, Black Lives Matter and other social justice and human rights concerns. While many of these artists shared the desire and talent to change the world for the better, I found that they often lacked the audience to reach more deeply into the general public. They were too-often siloed into their own communities, preaching to the choir as we say.
As I had developed a specific activist model which counteracted this siloing effect, I decided to found the International Human Rights Art Festival, to bring this energy together, work with (not in opposition) to politicians, government workers, social leaders and non-art activists, and give artists from around the world the platform from which they could reach a far wider audience, and effect more and better social solutions.
Given the deep thinking behind this project, the passion of the artists and the hunger for audience around the world, this project has been a major success — and we are only just getting started! We (already — though not even five years old) have worked with over 1000 artists from 101 countries; count among our honorary committee Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Charles E. Scumer (NY), Congresspersons John Lewis (GA – deceased), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamie Raskin, celebrities Barbra Streisand and Norman Lear and many others and have been banned by the Catholic Church due to our LGBTQ content, been covered in the New York Times, New York Observer, Fox 5 morning show (NYC), NBC Live! (NYC), AM-NY, Metro-NY, Hollywood Soapbox, Crain’s NY Business and many others and — most importantly — given our worldwide collective of creators the reach and audience that they so richly deserve.

I know this to be a fact, happily, due to the many testimonials we have received from our participating artists:
“In my view, IHRAF is one of the most powerful movements of the 21st century, and it is here to stay. IHRAF has revolutionized human rights in Africa through the use of arts.”
– Wole Adedoyin, Director, IHRAF African Secretariat, Nigeria

IHRAF has given me wings that I never had before,
It has given me a voice no one ever gave me,
It has opened a door that no one ever opened for me,
And let me in with no second thought.
– Geraldine Sinyuy, IHRAF 2023 Fellow, Cameroon

To be published by the IHRAF is to be recognised as a global voice for freedom.
– Dr. Uche Akunebu, Professor at the International Institute of Journalism, Abuja, Nigeria

A meeting place for arts, human rights and the government.  This is a new kind of coming together.
– Dr. Sarah Sayeed, Senior Advisor in the NYC Community Affairs Unit, specializing in Muslim outreach

Thank you for giving me the courage and I won’t let the bullies win. I have learned to not to be hurt by those bullying comments. And in school, I am not scared of the bullies now. Thank you, thank you. Please keep supporting me. Thank you again for giving me the courage.
– Nevyn Haque, Bangladeshi high school student

I am so thankful to have been part of this event. It was such an enriching experience, thank you Tom for your leadership and coordination! I have so much admiration for this festival as it addresses important topics in societies internationally. The talent that was presented was outstanding.
– Teresa Fellion, Body Stories Dance, NYC

I have so much gratitude to be welcomed under the diverse & inclusive umbrella that is IHRAF. It is a gift to receive support from an organization that truly understands the role of art and it’s intimate connection to activism, as a vital component to the sustainability and positive growth of our world.
– Mara Rosenbloom, pianist, improviser, composer, educator, NYC

I am writing to express my sincere gratitude to you for making the IHRAF Fellowship possible. I was thrilled to learn of my selection for this honor, and I am deeply appreciative. I have always dreamed of creating an initiative that combines both the arts and human rights by offering a space for committed artists to express themselves and unleash their creativity.
– Nora Gharyéni, Tunisian Tamazight singer-songwriter & guitarist

Tom, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have utilized visual art, writing and interdisciplinary artistic practice to create projects which explore the interaction between mysticism and the contemporary social and political worlds, with the hope of generating energies for the general good. Mysticism represents one individual’s search for appreciation of the unity hidden beneath multiplicity, and the desire to fuse emotionally and spiritually with this unity. When applied to human interaction, it represents an understanding of human interconnectedness with each other, and the world around us. My path began when I lived in western Spain, in the early 1990s. There, I read deeply in mysticism for the first time, as well as began developing my colorful and heavily impastoed visual aesthetic. Additionally, I began a program of blind contour drawing — in bars, cafes, on street corners, in train stations etc. — which has continued to this day. These nearly 10,000 quick drawings have deeply influenced my sense of line, visual structure, and thought processes, as they taught me how to see connectivity in the world in front of me.
All of my work bases in an aesthetic of beauty and sincerity. My visual works base in Expressionism, applying this visual approach to contemporary social, political and spiritual challenges. My written work is in the realm of social philosophy, exploring new ways to see old ideas. For instance, my most recently published book, “Mysticism in the Theater: What’s Needed Right Now” (Routledge, London, 2022) explores how to utilize mystical energies within contemporary theater practice. In my theatrical pieces, I use a healthy dose of absurdism and humor to “trick” the audience in to allowing novel and unconventional ideas enter, where they seed themselves into the unconscious and affect views of everyday life. A mystical perspective offers a very different point of view on everything from the Second Amendment to the massive “defense” spending to healthcare, as well as on interpersonal relations and thinking about the “other.” For mystics, after all, the “other” simply does not exist.
Ultimately, I hope that my creative work will cause viewers to question their role in making the world a better place to live.
All my work over the past 30 years unifies around two central aspects. The first is through the visual search undertaken by the blind contour drawing practice. The line developed by doing thousands of these drawings over the past three decades snakes through my paintings, unifying them as surely as a mystic sees unity in the world around him. Additionally, this drawing practice has influenced the way I see the world and therefore express my ideas in writing, as a line unifies a three dimensional scene in front of me, in the same manner that mystical appreciation understands the equality and similitude of all humans and, indeed, all physical aspects of the universe.
The second unifying aspect of the work is the mystical impulse, going as far back as my earliest painting series (“Mysticism of the Mundane,” 1995-1997), and forward through my exploration of specific spiritual paths (Jewish, Christian and Muslim, 1998-2007)); the application of spiritual ideals to social and political life (“Human Rights Painting Project” and “Response to Machiavelli”) and up through my latest works, both completed (“Parables”) and just begun (“Wandering Among Souls,” which explores the mysticism of the mundane, and how the spark of spirituality can be found as easily in a raisin as the Vatican.) This last work is in the exploratory stage (drawing, reading and writing), and will engage me for several years.
Lastly, it is important to note how deeply influenced is all of my work by my reading of mystics from all paths. For in mysticism, the religious paths (seemingly disparate in their practice and beliefs) unite. The unity of the human spiritual impulse exists — the human religion — in the thinkers at the center of all religions, who speak the same (spiritual) language and believe in the same fundamental facts: the unity of everyone and everything in the universe. I read deeply everything from Sufism, Kabbalah, Zen Buddhism and Zoroastrianism to Christian mysticism and Jainism. In mystical writings from all paths, I find the same thing: understanding, appreciation and unity.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (d. 286 B.C.E.) said: “Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses. And now, as all the world is in error, how shall I, though I know the true path, how shall I guide? If I know that I cannot succeed and yet try to force success, this would be but another source of error. Better then to desist and strive no more. But if I do not strive, who will?” When one looks into the world and sees growing gun-violence; religions that advocate hatred, war, taking from the poor to give to the rich, unthinking fealty to an autocracy of religious leaders, politics riven with anger, mean-spiritedness, destructive and hateful impulses — well, it is easy to want to remove oneself completely from society and sit in a quiet room, listen to jazz and paint or write. However, when this impulse hits — which it not-infrequently does — I keep this above quote in mind. Paired with Bertrand Russell (“It is better to do a little good than an awful lot of bad”), Albert Einstein (“No matter how bad you think things might be, without the efforts of those working to make it better, it would be a whole lot worse than it currently is”), Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (“The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference”), then I am compelled to develop work which can influence and hopefully change for the better, the society around us.
My mission — my goal — is literally the impossible: to apply mystical ideals to social interaction. Why impossible? Because mysticism, at its heart, represents one individual’s relationship with the divine. Activism, social betterment, the struggle for human rights represents interactions between and among people.
So my particular goal? To create a new frontier of mysticism — and the intersection of creativity, society and the spirit.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

In mystical thinking, the voyage and the goal are the same thing. As the Bhagavad Gita assures: “Be intent on action; not the fruit of action.” Not easy in today’s American hysterical social-media influencer driven society, but nonetheless, that which keeps me going day after day: the act of creating. Painting, writing, working on plays or the International Human Rights Art Festival — the moment-to-moment act of creating within a mystical framework is undoubtedly the most rewarding aspect of creativity. Is it difficult to remain thusly focused? Indeed it is — I struggle with what I see as a lack of commercial success for my work, and must reset my mindset on a daily basis. But reset I do, and I sit down again to write, paint of highlight creators from around the world. The Stoics tell us to “worry about only that which you can control, and your life will be serene.” I can control whether I am writing a book or painting a painting or publishing a poet from Malawi or Cameroon of Myanmar on the IHRAF Publishes site. I cannot control how it is received.     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tomblock.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-block-56a43310/
• Other: https://www.ihraf.org

Image Credits
Images 5, 6, 8: Steven Pisano Image 7: Elisa Gutierrez