Artist George H Lewis to address Nexus Global Youth Summit in New York City

The Nexus Global Youth Summit on Innovative Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship returns to New York City for its sixth year on 20-22 July 2016. Amongst the events taking place will be a lunch lab on Art and Healing (1pm on Thursday 21 July), featuring George H Lewis – an internationally acclaimed British contemporary painter, photographer and speaker, who seeks to cultivate a symbiosis across cultures, creeds and gender.

In the course of this discussion, Lewis will show how Art can be a way of working through uncertainty, and seeing the opportunities that change can bring. We are experiencing turbulent times, and the emotional state of the world is very fragile. Brexit and Trump are symptomatic of a global people who are resorting to tribalism due to their fear of change. Through art, we can dissolve the barriers and restrictions of old belief systems, leaving behind the essence of those beliefs, upon which we can build a new, global community. A transcultural community committed to compromise and respect.

“We are currently creating our own cognitive dissonance, but continuing along fear based values. We are continuing to use outdated belief systems that tremble in the face of anything new. The challenge today is to synthesize and look at the world holistically, indeed cosmologically. Problems are nothing but challenges being incorrectly met. The artist can lead the way.”

For the past five years Nexus has hosted over 20 summits across five continents, bridging communities of wealth and social entrepreneurship, giving rise to a movement that has spread all over the globe. Centered around the most pressing issues of our time, Nexus summits educate, inspire, and encourage dialogue and collaborative problem solving among exceptional members of the millennial generation to empower them to make the greatest impact with their social, political, and philanthropic capital.

Nexus’s co-founder, Rachel Cohen Gerrol, says: “Nexus Summit delegates come here because they – one way or another – inspire people around them to make social change. They are the hope and promise of our generation, tasked to find people and help accelerate their dreams and their passions.”

George H Lewis is based in New York and is available for interviews and commissions.