In July 2020, Adam Shapiro, then Head of Visibility & Communications at Front Line Defenders, and Beldan Sezen, award-winning visual storyteller, launched the first edition of Cypher, a digital comics magazine (‘zine) that advanced storytelling and narrative framing work in collaboration with and in support of HRDs.
Working with artists from around the world, the ’zine has been a monthly publication featuring between 2 and 6 stories of human rights defenders (HRDs), their work and the challenges they face.
Through May 2022, 17 editions of Cypher have been published, featuring 59 stories, covering human rights issues ranging from domestic violence to trans rights, prisoners rights to children’s rights, and environmental issues to anti-racism work.
TEAM:
adam shapiro - founder and publisher
Adam Shapiro served as head of communications and visibility at Front Line Defenders from 2011 to 2022, where he developed all the programming of the organization focused on campaigning and visibility for human rights defenders, including Cypher Comics (together with Beldan Sezen), as well as other multimedia and research projects. The comics stories are a tool for human rights activists and advocates to use for reaching new audiences and engaging their communities in a way that is more relevant, accessible and interesting than traditional human rights communications tools.
beldan sezen - founder and creative director
Beldan Sezen is an artist and writer. Her work includes graphic novels, artists’ books, drawings, essays, and installations. As a curator of artists books, she is part of the Booklyn team, an artist-run, consensus-governed, artist and bookmakers organization headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. Between 2015 - 2019 she participated in panels at Comic Con NY and Queer Comic Con NY where she introduced the concept of comics as an eyewitness based on her short comic Memory patches in which she documented the killing of a Turkish prosecutor.
In 2015 she was awarded with a Global Arts Fund by the Astraea Foundation for exploring questions of survival, freedom and possibility in regards to Queer bodies which resulted in her guerrilla art project BUTCH IT UP! in Istanbul, Turkey. Her graphic memoir Snapshots of a Girl was part of the American Library Association, Over the Rainbow Project book list award (2016). She is the recipient of the 2022 Herzog August Bibliothek Artists’ Book Prize fellowship for exploring questions of inner confinement based on the work by German Black philosopher Anton W. Amo in 1734.
Her books are collected privately and by institutions including three national libraries - the US Library of Congress, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and KB nationale bibliotheek van Nederland.
mohammed tayeb - motion graphics
Mohamed Tayeb is a Palestinian activist and digital media artist who works predominantly in the medium of painting and animation with a focus on graphic design, incorporating animated video into his installations. His work addresses issues related to activism, art and technology. He is the creator of “Zaytoun, the little refugee,” an online game that won the 2015 Jury Award in Arts & Media at the Deutsche Welle 11th annual The Bobs - Best of Online Activism. Mohamed was the artist for the Cypher 014 story about Palestinian HRDs Sami and Samiha Huraini, and also created the first motion graphic promo for the story as part of campaign work related to the two HRDs.
anica archip - communications & partnerships
Anica Archip is a seasoned marketing and public relations professional focused in the arts, entertainment, culture and arts & advocacy arena. She directed the marketing & pr for Umbrage Editions, a publisher of high quality photo books and content-rich products in subject matter ranging from social justice/human rights to pop culture and art, such as: “Speak Truth To Power” by Kerry Kennedy & photographer Eddie Adams consisting of portraits and profiles of human rights defenders around the world. In the Comics / Graphic novels industry she has worked on projects with the legendary Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc.) Z2 Comics, artists/writers Paul Pope, Dean Haspiel, and promoted the NY Comics Festival.
Cypher Comics is a registered non-profit.
