Finding beauty in the jarring, the weird, and the radical is what defines these thinkers. An architect’s body of work promoted economic equality alongside award-winning aesthetics. A muralist honored trash collectors by scribbling on the walls of their slum. A choreographer spoke to queer African experiences through Russian ballet. A new-media maven used 3-D printing to heal cultural scars inflicted by the Islamic State, while a samba star cast a spotlight on Brazil’s social and economic struggles. Hatred, violence, and poverty may be enduring ills, but artistic pushback is eternal.
