The Fading Portraits Project for Amnesty International promotes the organization’s call for more transparency against state sanctioned abductions of political activists. The campaign is suited for the category Promo & Activation because it was an art performance aimed at the public to raise awareness of the problem. It was staged where it matters most: on the streets and for everyone to see. The goal: putting public pressure on the German government and the EU and urging them to take action by making this practice of deliberately letting people disappear an indictable crime.

The Fading Portraits Project took place on 30 August 2014, the International Day of the Disappeared. The idea was to quite literally show a handful of political activists disappear by drawing their portraits on the pavement with water. US artist Nicholas Kashian expertly executed the street art performance, using the pavements in Berlin’s central district of Mitte as a canvas. Gone without a trace in a matter of minutes, the artworks highlighted the activists’ fates to jaw-dropping effect. Billboards and banners accompanied the performance.

Amnesty’s campaign powerfully managed to give a voice to those disappeared for political reasons by literally drawing public attention to their fate. The performance was covered in numerous important media outlets, like Germany’s most influential television news broadcast Tagesschau, reaching 10 million plus viewers. It was also covered on Euronews, Europe’s leading news channel for international news and affairs. Hundreds of clippings from blogs, online media, newspapers and magazines, thousands of tweets and re-tweets added to the strong voice that was addressing this problem. But what’s most important: As a result of the performance and the widespread coverage it generated, the issue was put on the political agenda of the German Bundestag and the European Union.