Max Frieder 

Max Frieder is the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of the international community-based public arts education organization Artolution.

He is a public artist and community arts educator from Denver, Colorado who is based out of Brooklyn, New York. His work ranges from community building in refugee camps, art education in emergencies, supporting local resilience building, social cohesion and conflict resolution. He is a trans-disciplinary artist, sculptor, muralist, educator, researcher and facilitates collaborative mural programs that address critical local issues with children, youth and families. 

He has worked with hundreds of communities in different contexts across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America and Asia. He created the “Foundstrument Soundstrument Project”, building large-scale interactivepercussive sculptures out of trash and recycled materials around the world. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with honors and a degree in Painting and received his Education Masters (Ed.M) in “Community Arts” in Art and Art Education from the Teachers College, Columbia University where he published a five-year body of research through his Education Doctorate (Ed.D) titled “ The Rohingya Artolution: Teaching Locally Led Community-based Public Art Educators in the Largest Refugee Camp in History”. His projects have taken him from Syrian, South Sudanese, Palestinian, and Greek refugee camps to conflict zones, traumatized communities, and across borders to over 26 countries globally.

He has received recognition from the New York Times, CBS, NBC, Forbes and the Associated Press. He planted the seed for the first ongoing public arts program for Rohingya artists in the largest refugee camp in the world, in Bangladesh on the border of Myanmar.

He is a published author contributing to “Art Making with Refugees and Survivors: Transformative Responses to Trauma after Natural Disasters, War and Other Crises”,as well as publishing with Global Citizen. For his global work, he was awarded the International Crisis Award from UNICEF and the World of Children and in 2018.

He has curated retrospective exhibitions of Global Refugee Art Works in the World Trade Center, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, COP27, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva. He has cultivated global partnerships with UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, UNFPA, US State Department, IFRC, NRC, GIZ, NBC, UNIQLO, Gucci, Christie’s, the World Economic Forum and many more. His ranging work focuses on cultivating ongoing programs by educating local artists globally on how to transform communities through public engagement, creative facilitation and inspired participation as the next phase in the history of the arts.