Mission

The Magazine

OF NOTE is an award-winning online magazine that features global artists using the arts as tools for social change. The magazine is a digital space where art meets activism.

Mission

1) OF NOTE brings awareness to the innovative ways people use the arts to impact policy, promote global citizenship, inspire social consciousness, motivate action, and simply put, improve the state of the world.

2) Through its arts and cultural essays and interviews with socially-engaged artists, OF NOTE raises awareness of contemporary social issues.

3) With a commitment to under-the-radar artists, OF NOTE amplifies the voices and visibility of artists who are often neglected in the media and who do not usually make the headlines or front pages.

Impact

Through its curated issues, OF NOTE has featured over 80 Artists from 40 countries who use the arts to address social justice/human rights issues. OF NOTE’s long-form journalism authored by its roster of emerging and established internationally-based Writers has focused on how Artists:

1. Confront the infiltration of guns in our day-to-day lives
2. Spotlight the lack of access to clean water around the world
3. Use their art practice to examine the complicated experiences of Muslim women who wear the burqa
4. Address mass incarceration in the United States
5. Respond to current immigration debates and challenge preconceived notions about immigrants
6. Champion the education of girls in developing nations
7. Raise the level of discourse on contemporary art from Guyana

OF NOTE in the Classroom

OF NOTE partners with higher education institutions to turn our art & activism issues into curriculum and bring the work of global artists using the arts as tools for social change into the classroom.

The City College of New York

Using The Imprisoned Issue as the “textbook” in Spring, 2017 at The City College of New York, “The Imprisoned: Artists Examine Mass Incarceration in the United States” course, taught by OF NOTE founder Grace Aneiza Ali, focused on how artists are using their artistic practices to illuminate the day-to-day lives of those in prison as a way to call for much needed change.

New York University

In Spring 2016 and 2017, OF NOTE  founder Grace Aneiza Ali examined how journalism reports, questions, documents, archives, and culls new language that thoughtfully and critically examines the intersection of art and activism in the class, “Artists, Social Change, & the Role of Journalism” at New York University. Students from the Spring, 2016 course produced The Water Issue (Summer, 2016). Students from the Spring, 2017 course produced the The Unsheltered Issue (Winter, 2017).

Press

OF NOTE’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, World Policy Journal, GOOD Magazine, and The Miami Herald, among others. [See OF NOTE in the News]

Awards & Honors

2014, Images & Voices of Hope (IVOH) Media Award

Awarded to OF NOTE magazine and Grace Aneiza Ali, founder & editorial director, for Outstanding media project that shows a commitment to constructive change. [more]

2014, Guyana Cultural Association Award

Awarded to OF NOTE magazine and Grace Aneiza Ali, founder & editorial director, for Outstanding accomplishment in contemporary media.  

“The online magazine OF NOTE is leading edge in its application of the arts as a catalytic mechanism for activism and social change. The use of multi-media to portray the artistic and cultural productions of Guyana and Guyanese in the Diaspora is most noteworthy. The country’s multi-ethnic heritage can be seen as an inspiration.” (Guyana Cultural Association)

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