Amnesty International’s Freedom Pages Art and Literature Competition

Choose one of the prompts below and bring it to life through your own unique artistic or literary creation.

1. Reflect on censorship and governments silencing dissent in your community and abroad. Think about the lost jobs, revoked visas, constant surveillance, or disappearance from public life that people face when they challenge harmful power structures. Create a piece that explores what silence looks like when it is enforced. Who still dares to speak, and what do they risk? How does fear change relationships, communities, or identity? What symbols or imagery represent voices being suppressed but not extinguished?
2. Across the United States, concerns about censorship on school campuses are growing, ranging from the cancellation of commencement speakers due to their political views to the arrest of students for writing school op-eds. At the same time, the federal government has threatened to withhold funding from colleges and universities unless they are granted greater authority to influence what professors can teach and to limit campus initiatives that foster inclusion or promote racial justice, equity, and belonging. Create a piece that challenges these practices and defends freedom of expression for youth on school campuses. What does it look like to carry your voice, identity, and beliefs into school spaces? What happens when students are told to stay silent and how do they resist? What happens to school communities when their right to peaceful protest and free speech is suppressed? What symbols represent student power (megaphones, notebooks, murals, digital spaces)? Consider showcasing school as a place of both restriction and possibility.
3. The internet and social media have changed how we share ideas, tell stories, and advocate for change. While these tools can amplify voices across the globe, they can also silence people through censorship, harassment, or disinformation. Create a piece that explores both sides of the digital world. How does social media empower people to speak out? When does it become a tool for silencing or controlling voices? Who gets heard—and who gets ignored or attacked?
4. Books and literacy can open minds, challenge injustice, and inspire action. Throughout history, reading has been a powerful form of resistance. Create a piece showing how literacy transforms people into activists. What book, story, or idea has the power to change the world? How does understanding words lead to action? What happens when access to books is taken away?
5. Censorship silences voices but it also shapes how stories are told and what is lost. Create a piece that explores storytelling as both survival and resistance in the face of restricted expression. How do people share their stories when they cannot speak freely, and what creative forms, such as songs, symbols, or coded language, emerge in place of banned speech? At the same time, consider what is lost when expression is limited. How does censorship affect identity, creativity, and truth? Which stories disappear, who decides what is “allowed,” and why are some stories considered powerful enough to be censored?