I interviewed Edgard Gouveia Jr. over two years ago about his efforts to use games and stories to electrify communities around the world. He is the Brazilian co-founder of Livelab, a nonprofit dedicated to creating and running collaborative games for positive change. Gouveia's organizing principle is building the world of our dreams in a way that is fast, free, fun and fantastic.
On a planet that can feel increasingly challenged, I wanted to ask him about his latest efforts, the state of his movement and what he dreams of.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. This story is part of a weeklong series of follow-ups to past posts.
What's been happening in the last two years? How have things been evolving for you?
Oh my God, so much.
I've been invited by a variety of groups to lead activities around the idea of "play for change." For instance, there's the global artivism movement that has grown up to respond to the rise of the extreme right and of fascism.
What is artivism?
We define artivism as art that is meant for social and environmental change.
Basically, we call an artivist someone with three facets. First, they have to be a strong and recognized artist — whether they dance, sing, paint, write poetry, etc. Their art should touch people's hearts, minds and dreams.
Second, their work should be rooted in their own community. That can be a neighborhood, a city, a region, or demographic, but it should be serving, inspiring and uplifting that community. It's not someone who only creates inside their studio. In other words, an artivist is an activist as well.
Finally, they have to be able to inspire people. They need to move others beyond their own communities. And that effort should be big and impactful.
Martin Luther King Jr., Frida Kahlo, Bob Marley, Mercedes Sosa, the Beatles and Maya Angelou are all example of artivists — people who have used their art to move and inspire people.
So back to the global artivism movement you were describing…
They're having the next convening here in Brazil in the city of Salvador later this year. The organizers appreciated the way that I engage and energize communities through the field of play.
They said, "Edgard, we need you. We are losing the battle over the narrative of change against the extreme right. We don't want just a workshop from you. We want you to help us design the community engagement piece of the gathering as well as the movement itself."
That was really exciting.
So I'm working on that right now. I'm thinking of ways for people to not just gather inside rooms or hotels or convention centers. Rather, we're creating a whole-day workshop in the Black neighborhood of Pelourinho in Salvador centered around the question: How can our art be a medicine for change?
That is the provocation. What can you bring and create to reverse trauma, empower women, restore hope, and rebuild infrastructure? What can we weave together from each other's artistic practices to make the change we want?
So we are bringing together artists, funders and amazing foundations from all over the world to share what I'm calling the medicine of the Black diaspora. And people are really loving this idea.
What do you mean by the medicine of the Black diaspora?
The Africans who were enslaved and their descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Central America, the United States and elsewhere developed a lot of strategies to survive, thrive, and even to rise. For example, there's the use of music, voices, drums, dance, and martial arts.
These people developed a lot of powerful technologies — artistic, spiritual, emotional, mental — to survive the worst conditions and motivate and strengthen us.
I call it Black diaspora medicines because many of the most powerful ideas didn't exist in Africa. They were developed in the diaspora. People had knowledge from Africa, but it was under the terrible conditions elsewhere that they refined and invented new strategies to survive.
What evidence have you seen in your own activities that this can work?
Let me tell you about when I met Kumi Naidoo, the global activist from South Africa. He fought together with Mandela. And he was the former international executive director of Greenpeace International and the former secretary general of Amnesty International.
He is behind the Global Artivism conference and movement. And he was the one who invited me to be a part of that initiative.
We first met in the Pyrenees in the fall of 2022 at a small gathering of maybe 20 artivist leaders. That weekend, the nearby little medieval town was celebrating its birthday.
When we showed up, we sat in one corner of the square and the whole community was in the other corner. There was an empty space between us. We were not connected. They couldn't speak our language and we couldn't speak their language, even as artivists.
It was uncomfortable being there. Our small group felt ashamed to have invaded their space.
And I said, "No, no. Stop it." The other artivists encouraged me to do something.
So I went to the stage and asked the guys there to play Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There," "Kumbalawe" from Cirque du Soleil and a traditional South American song called "Berekete."
Everyone — the community members and the artivists — we created concentric circles without speaking. I asked them to move like me. And suddenly we all started dancing, hands joined, in unison.
And by the end of the three songs, community members ran out of the square to their houses to bring back tables and chairs. And they cooked a lunch for us to eat all together. They split us up so that one or two artivists sat with each family because they wanted to interact with us even without speaking the language.
So this is one way that we can break silence and break separation even though we have no shared language or connection. We can use art to find other ways to communicate.
And by the way, we stayed all the way until the evening — just because of that energy we had created when we came together.
It's like a human orchestra.
What is your dream, Edgard?
I want to enable dreams that are enlightened, beautiful, connected and collaborative. I'm trying to contribute with my experiences, my technologies, my movement on the planet to inspire people.
This is the opposite of a reality rooted in war, fighting, striking, marching, demanding.
If just 1% of humanity is seeding society with fear, revenge, suspicions and rage to keep in power… what if we dance? What if we rise no matter what, like Maya Angelou said? What if we could use the power of rock and roll, of samba, of Carnival to build the world that we're looking for?
That is the energy that I am seeding in the world.
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