Painting New Horizons: Unveiling hera’s new website, a collaboration with artist Patricia Lourenço
At hera, our commitment is to enhance health and foster development by leveraging multi-disciplinary expertise. We collaborate with public, non-profit, and private sector organisations globally to design, implement, and evaluate health and development programmes. Now, we are incredibly thrilled to announce the launch of our new website, a project that carries a profound significance as it reflects a milestone with the talented artist from Portugal, Patricia Lourenço. This isn't merely a new "look"; it’s a partnership interwoven with purpose, creativity, and the symmetry of human rights and artistry.
Working with artists is significant to us for numerous reasons. Art transcends barriers and communicates messages on a deeper, more emotional level. It humanizes issues, allowing us to build empathy and understanding in ways that mere facts and statistics can't. In this sense, artists play a crucial role in illuminating our mission and vision, making the invisible visible, and highlighting the narratives we seek to change.
To produce the new site our communications team joined forces with our web design team Antenna and Patricia Lourenço, an artist from Portugal, to breathe a new visual life into our online presence. Patricia is a multifaceted talent whose career spans from law to photography, communication design, and eventually, freelance design and illustration with a focus on social work and human rights education. Her story is one of growth and exploration, as much as it is about boundaries, or more appropriately, horizons.
Patricia's fascination with the concept of horizons underpins her artistry: "Is the limit a clear line or is it a winding one? In my life so far, I unconsciously decided for the second option," she explains. Her belief that the horizons in our lives are as fluid and changeable as the paths we tread mirrors our own commitment to continual movement and development at hera.
When Patricia turned her attention towards the crossroad of art and human rights, her passion found its true north. She believes that the intersection of art, culture, and development possesses an immense potential to drive social change. "In order to change the narratives, we have to be able to create new stories. Stories that convey a multipolar perspective. Stories that include everyone," she affirms.
With this in mind, Patricia embarked on a unique project with hera. Crafting the visual aspect of our new website was, as she put it, "a collective drawing." She weaved her imaginative interpretation of our vision, mission, values, and expertise with the shared ideas and perspectives of the hera team. As Patricia puts it: "The images developed for the website were the result of a collective drawing...combining hera’s vision and values with its experience and knowledge...with the sharing of individual thoughts, creative perspectives, and ideas." This spirit of collaboration and dedication to a shared cause is precisely what makes Patricia an exemplary partner in this project. Her work is a testament to our ideals of inclusion, diversity, and multiculturalism. As you navigate the new site, you'll find horizons that are "ever moving, like the pendulum, but not in the traditional way." They embody our values of constant reinvention and critical thinking.
We invite you to navigate our new website to see Patricia's compelling visuals come to life. Our team and Patricia thank you for your continuous support as we explore this new horizon together. With immense gratitude to Patricia for her contributions, we look forward to seeing how her visuals will inspire and engage our community.