A Tectonic Shift Of 2014

Let me take you back to WVD-2014 in Chandigarh. A hundred rickshaws clattered through the city — some carried banners, others passengers with visibly patchy skin. Street performers trailed behind. Curious onlookers stood by, phones in hand. Somewhere near Sector 17, a little boy in whiteface paint jumped off a float, pointed at the crowd, and shouted, “I’m not sick!”

That was the moment I realized something had shifted — like a tectonic plate nudging its neighbor before a tsunami hits the other side of the ocean.

Vitiligo had always been a medical condition. But here’s the thing: it’s visual before it’s medical. It’s the first thing people notice, the last thing they understand, and somewhere in between lies an ocean of assumptions, stares, and — far too often — shame.

Now it was becoming something else. A movement. And like most good revolutions, it found its rallying cry not in a clinic — but in art and culture. Because art doesn’t explain vitiligo. It expresses it. And sometimes, that’s exactly what the world needs to see.

Art Breaks the Silence

Until the mid-2010s, vitiligo wasn’t part of the public conversation. It lived quietly in dermatology conferences, and the occasional Oprah episode rerun with Michael Jackson, or rare TED talks by Chantelle – Winnie Harlow or Lee Thomas.

Image: "How I help people understand vitiligo" by Lee Thomas at TED 

We only have faint traces of the earliest artistic expressions inside the vitiligo community — chalk drawings at awareness walks, art exchanges at support group meetings, street murals that never made the news. Somewhere between the real estate crash and the COVID lockdowns, the first sparks began flickering. And by WVD-2022, they had caught fire.

That year, the Mexican Vitiligo and Skin Disease Association (AMPVEM) mounted a bold photo exhibit inside the main conference hall of World Vitiligo Day. Titled “Vitiligo: A Colorful Skin,” it offered no science, no jargon, no stats — just faces. Proud. Unfiltered. Vulnerable.

A couple of years later, the exhibit landed in Europe. VIPOC — the Vitiligo International Patient Organizations Committee, led by Jean-Marie Meurant and Paul Monteiro — picked up the baton. Patient advocate Martine Carré transformed gallery halls in France and the Netherlands into quiet spaces of defiance. People didn’t just look at vitiligo — they started seeing through it. Then VIPOC took it to the streets. Awareness posters popped up in train stations, metro stops, bus shelters — everyday places. Which, of course, was the point.

Vitiligo wasn’t just a condition anymore. It was becoming part of daily life. Then came the painters. The sculptors. The kids with crayons.

By WVD-2023, artists, activists, and patients were experimenting with new forms of creative visibility. In Kazakhstan, Meryert Kurmet — the country’s first vitiligo fashion model — made headlines wearing handcrafted jewelry designed exclusively for this occasion.

From Canvas To Code: The AI Uprising

By WVD-2024, just when we thought we’d seen every possible interpretation of pigment and paint, someone added AI to the mix.

That year in Cali, Colombia, World Vitiligo Day hosted its first global art competition. The rules were wide open. Submissions ranged from poetry to children’s book illustrations to AI-generated photorealism. A collision of watercolor and algorithm, oil paint and neural net. The future had officially arrived.

Each category came with a $500 prize, thanks to an Austrian philanthropic fund that, refreshingly, asked for no corporate branding. Just impact.

The big winner? Dr. Jacqueline Cifuentes, for her haunting black-and-white image Cadenas del Vitiligo (Chains of Vitiligo) of a man with vitiligo behind prison bars. Photorealistic, stark, and loaded with meaning: Was he trapped by society? By stigma? By his own skin? Yes — all of the above.

Image: Cadenas del Vitiligo by Dr. Jacqueline Cifuentes (Columbia)

Dr. Andrea Arango was honored alongside her, with a vitiligo-themed children’s book that reshaped how the next generation might see the condition — less as a flaw, more as a story worth telling.

To top it off, former Miss Colombia Taliana Vargas — who lives with vitiligo herself — addressed the event (YouTube), not as a figurehead, but as someone who’s walked the walk. It wasn’t just advocacy. It was family.

This wasn’t a side event. It was another seismic shift — a decade after Chandigarh. For the second time, World Vitiligo Day embraced art as a tool for transformation, not just decoration.

When Toronto Got Lit (Literally)

Fast forward to WVD-2025. Toronto took it up a notch.

With the theme Innovation for Every Skin, Powered by AI, the contest reflected the campaign’s tech-forward vision — but with a distinctly Canadian flair that even made this veteran event organizer do a double take.

Artists submitted in two distinct categories: AI-driven art (including AR and digital works) and traditional formats (painting, photography, sculpture — the classics). Each category came with a $250 prize and industry visibility. Entries and votes flowed through Skinopathy’s AI-powered app — as easy as scrolling your feed.

Two artists captured the spirit of the moment:

• Goran Miladich (EU), with Native Harmony — a digital composition blending human and natural forms
• Gabriela Guerra de Almeida (Brazil), with Travessia (Crossing) — a body-painted meditation on resilience and rebirth

Image: Native Harmony by Goran Miladich (EU)

Toronto didn’t stop there. The entire WVD 2025 event was folded into the city-wide Toronto Tech Week and the #Lit4Vit campaign — lighting up the CN Tower, City Hall, and 14 other landmarks in purple. People on Instagram asked if it was for Prince. We told them no — it was for everyone whose pigment faded, but presence never did.

The Creative Bedrock of Vitiligo Art

None of this would’ve happened without years of groundwork laid by Indian dermatologists.

The Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists (IADVL) has quietly blended medicine with artistic expression long before it was trendy.

Every year, their vitiligo art contest receives hundreds of submissions. In 2025, judges Arpa Mukherjee and Dr. Tarun Narang handpicked 12 winners from 144 entries.

Some were breathtaking. Others, pastel chaos. But they all said the same thing: I exist.

Film Didn’t Stay Quiet Either

If art broke the silence, film kicked the door open.

Start with More Than Our Skin, a 2024 documentary by Emmy-winner Tonia Magras (YouTube). It follows five women — Katrina, Millicent, Valarie, Patricia, and Alicia — whose lives defy pity. They’re funny, flawed, flirtatious, and at times exhausted. One jokes about painting her spots like leopard print. Another doesn’t laugh. The film won Best Documentary Feature in L.A. and made the finals in New York. More importantly, it earned trust.

VIPOC in Europe added its voice with Marmoladas, a poetic short by Astrid Bischofberger and Lucia Perona. There’s no plot, just mood: narration, music, hands, scars, breath. In one frame, a woman traces her patch like a map. In another, she hides it — then removes the scarf. That’s it. It lands. A woman hides her vitiligo with a scarf — then takes it off. That’s the story. That’s enough.

Then came Calico (IMDB 8.6) a magical-realist short that premiered during WVD-2025 in Toronto. Directed by Jake Mavity — who has vitiligo himself — the story follows Lorrie, a 15-year-old girl who befriends a talking goldfish and starts an unusual journey of self-acceptance. Yes, really — a goldfish. And yes, it works. Calico is tender, strange, and unforgettable — a love letter to outsiders that hits where it hurts. Just as murals and digital exhibits lit up Toronto, Calico lit up the screen.

And then there’s India. Oh, India.

First came Thalavara (IMDB, 8.2) — a Malayalam-language indie film starring Arjun Ashokan as a supermarket cashier with vitiligo who dreams of becoming an actor. It’s meta, gentle, and surprisingly funny. No melodrama. Just a guy trying to be seen.

But Bili Chukki Halli Hakki (IMDB) — White Spotted Village Bird in Kannada — is where things really turned. Directed by Mahesh Gowda, who also plays the lead — and lives with vitiligo himself — the film is a romantic comedy that makes no excuses. For the first time in Indian cinema, someone with vitiligo played a character with vitiligo. Imagine that.

Meanwhile, in New York: Madame Tussauds Got Real

By WVD-2025, the wax gods finally got it right.

That year, WVD marked a historic moment when Winnie Harlow — supermodel, cultural icon, and unapologetic force — unveiled her wax figure at Madame Tussauds New York.

It wasn’t just a tribute. It was the first figure to faithfully capture her vitiligo pattern as it appeared during the sitting — an extraordinary level of detail for a global stage. She chose the gold sequin gown from the 2023 Victoria’s Secret show. The pose. The pigment. Every element was hers.

Being immortalized at Madame Tussauds is a rare honor, typically reserved for global icons and cultural pioneers. For Winnie, it meant something more personal: the opportunity to be represented on her own terms, and in her own skin.

Image source: Madame Tussauds 

BTW: I’ve stood next to it. She doesn’t blink, obviously. But she stares back. And that’s enough.

The Face on TV: The Broadcast That Changed Everything

Long before purple landmarks or AI portraits, there was Lee Thomas — an Emmy-winning TV reporter with vitiligo, broadcasting live from Detroit.

He didn’t just cover the news. He was the news. Diagnosed in the ’90s, Lee spent years wearing makeup on air. Then one day, he stopped. No announcement. No explanation. Just honesty.

So, when he walked on stage at WVD 2025 in Toronto — unannounced, unfiltered — the room erupted. For many, he was the first person they’d ever seen with vitiligo on screen. Seeing him in person? That hit different.

He spoke about showing up. Choosing visibility when invisibility would be easier. Owning your story — on camera or off.

That moment became the heartbeat of a campaign that had already shattered records:

• 60+ million unique users reached on June 25
• 150+ million impressions in one week
• 25,000+ live interactions during a single WVD segment

Art may be the soul of this movement. But Lee? He’s the original megaphone.

Music: Soundtracks for the Skin

Music, it turns out, might be vitiligo’s most underrated advocacy tool.

Michael Jackson may have been the first global figure to speak publicly about it — though most of his story got buried under media noise and speculation. But he got people asking.

Rapper Krizz Kaliko named his debut album Vitiligo in 2008. That’s not branding — that’s bleeding on the beat. Sisqó spoke about stress-triggered pigment loss. Rigo Tovar, a Mexican music legend, kept touring with vitiligo long before it made headlines. Marcus Haran mixed vitiligo and hip-hop. And the list keeps growing.

In India, the Aarus Foundation dropped awareness tracks like “I’m Happy to Have Vitiligo” (2019) and “Yeh Zindagi” (2021) — part rap, part celebration, part middle finger to shame.

Image: "I'm Happy To Have Vitiligo" Rap Song for World Vitiligo Day (YouTube)

Clinics joined in, too. Dr. Nitika Kohli’s center in Delhi hosted “musical healing” sessions with live performances and zero white coats. Just sound. And breath.

The Chandigarh Connection

It’s no accident the next chapter lands in Chandigarh — a city designed by Le Corbusier, the modernist who believed light, space, and order could heal societies.

He didn’t just design buildings. He designed ideas — bold, controversial, human.

At the city’s heart stands the Open Hand Monument: a 26-meter-high sculpture with a simple message — to give and receive, in peace and unity.

Not Just Seen. Felt

A decade into this strange, beautiful journey, one thing’s clear: Visibility isn’t just about being seen. It’s about being felt and understood.

And that doesn’t come from leaflets or lectures. It sneaks in sideways — in a song lyric, a short film, a child’s drawing where the patches aren’t erased, just outlined in gold.

That’s when someone pauses and thinks: “Oh. I get it now.”

From sidewalk chalk to AI art. From subway posters to wax museums. From rap bars to runway struts. Each one added something. A beat. A line. A spark.

What began with a rickshaw parade in Chandigarh has become a global remix of pigment and presence.

So go on. Paint it. Film it. Loop it. Drop the beat.

Because vitiligo isn’t a flaw to hide — It’s a story worth telling.

Yan Valle

CEO VRF, Professor | Author A No-Nonsense Guide To Vitiligo

Keep reading:

• World Vitiligo Day 2026 – A Historic Return to the Movement's Spiritual Birthplace
• World Vitiligo Day’s Media Coverage Evolution: From Detroit to Toronto
• World Vitiligo Day 2025 – Global Celebrations & Media Footprint

or Listen to Deep Dive in Vitiligo podcast

• World Vitiligo Day Goes Supersonic in Purple (Ep. 39)
• How World Vitiligo Day Reached 60+ Million People in 24 Hours (Ep. 38)
• World Vitiligo Day: Redefining the Future of Dermatology (Ep. 36)