barefoot artists
Recognizing that creativity and beauty are powerful agents for healing and change, Barefoot Artists works with poor communities around the globe practicing the arts to bring healing, self-empowerment and social change
The healing power of art
Lily yeh – The ted interview
From Taiwan to Rwanda, artist Lily Yeh has traveled all over the world in pursuit of more than just aesthetic pleasure — and she’s activating local communities on this journey. Chris and Lily chat about Lily’s artistic evolution, discuss how art encourages growth and healing, and examine the positive effect that art can have on individuals long, even long after a work has been completed.
Visit the TED Audio Collective website.
Lily Yeh
featured in new book!
Barefoot Artists Founder and Director Lily Yeh is featured in the new book "Infectious Generosity” Chris Anderson. The bestselling author, media pioneer, and curator of TED explores one of humankind’s defining but overlooked impulses, and how we can super-charge its potential to build a hopeful future
From the book:
Barefoot artists documentary
This lyrical and emotionally wrenching film explores the methods and motivations of Lily Yeh and her revolutionary work. It documents the two sides of Lily’s life: her international ventures mending the broken and helping to heal weakened spirits in communities in North America, Africa, China, and India, and a personal journey within, to repair her own fractured family.
ESTHER AND
THE DREAM of
ONE HUMAN FAMILY
THROUGH
DECEMBER 2025
American Visionary
art Museum
Lily Yeh’s The 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Acrylic on Brown Paper, 2015 is featured in the exibition Esther and the Dream of One Human Family at the American Visionary Museum in Baltimore. The show pays tribute to humanity’s unjust persecution of innocents and the dream of a world at peace and has been extended through December 2025.
What People Are Saying
"Lily Yeh is a global angel. She not only believes in the power of people, but inspires and ignites them through her own creative firc. Lily Yeh changed my life completely, and if yor read “Awakening Creativity” your life as you know it will begin to change, as well, through the vibrancy of art in action called love."
— Terry tempest williams
"Turabi Shimiya! Turabi Shimiya!" ("Happy to see you! Happy to see you!")
— Children of Rugerero, Rwanda, upon Lily Yeh's return to the village
"Ms. Lily Yeh has an extaordinary ability to combine the best elements ofthe left and right brain in countless projects of intemational acclaim. we can use her book as testament and a road map to a far better world,"
— Bill strickland
