Culture consists of the ideas, customs, art, and social behavior of a particular people or society. It is a plurality of beliefs, rites, traditions, esthetics, ethics, and histories. Nowhere on earth are people without language or art. Art and artists bridge the gaps between people, continents, cultures, civilizations, and time. The arts mirror the endeavors and oeuvres of humanity. The arts are an ongoing research into the nature of human beings and of their environment. To quote from Tanella Boni’s keynote address during the WHC, the arts have an essential role in “the preservation of the humanity of the human,” and are at the heart of what is meant by the humanities. An artist’s responsibility does not lie solely in aesthetic research. He/she has a responsibility to provide people with new ways to discover the world—to influence, to provoke, to propose and to generate reflexive criticisms.

The expressions of the human mind are as diverse as those producing the arts, and hence are part of disciplines that constitute the humanities. The arts are a journey within the world of mankind, beyond political or religious borders. The arts are reflections of the human mind and its functioning—observing, recognizing, and rationalizing, using resourcefulness and creativity to revolutionize, to transform, to propose, to act, to advance, to interrogate, and to transmute, while forming philosophies, laws, ethics, and economies.

Now, more than ever, creativity should favour access to knowledge and to universal values and principles, and should seek to connect worldwide problems with emerging solutions. We must encourage cross-world knowledge and comprehension, to enhance participation and collaboration beyond borders—on global issues such as education, environmental consciousness, and ethics. Arts and culture are powerful mediators in the constitution of social realities and personal mindsets.

With globalization, socio-cultural issues a nd practices now, theoretically, have an international reach. A collective of artists and project holders will illustrate—via a general schema of communication transcending locations or personal differences— an enhanced understanding of our realities, limits, tools, objects, symbols, and languages, as well as our philosophies, life choices, and histories. By proposing actions and concrete activities, in collaboration with educators, scientist, and humanists, the collective will also propose choices for the future. Yet, to paraphrase Prof. Luiz Oosterbeek, the co-coordinator of Arts and Society, the arts do not replace science, and are not reducible to the concerns of the sciences, but they are part of the process of enhancing creativity and imagining new futures.

The history of the arts and that of man are inseparable. Art begins with man, or even, perhaps, with his direct predecessor, the Australopithecus. Man asserted himself from the start as an artist because he collected the “works of art” of nature, then immediately created forms, produced traces, and invented the first ornaments. The latter aspect draws on the Neuroscience of Human Flourishing, a new subject area that is gaining support and popularity with many in contemporary society. As a movement, we can combine sociological, artistic, psychological, and philosophical perspectives to represent important societal challenges and the means to address them.

The Arts and Humanities Project represents the beginning of a global movement of artists reflecting upon the impact of creativity as an essential factor in all cognitive development. The Arts and Humanities Project aims to become active—and interactive—thanks to the will of artists, project leaders, and collaborators, looking to create and contribute to events, to share resources, knowledge, competences, and to create bridges between projects and people.