Daniel Arzola

Daniel Alexander Arzola (born May 6, 1989) is a Venezuelan writer, visual artist, graphic designer and human rights defender. He is most well known for being the creator of (In English, "I Am Not Your Joke"), a series of fifty posters that became the first Venezuelan LGBT campaign to go viral globally in 2013. He refers to his use of artwork for activism as "Artivism."

Personal life Arzola was born in Maracay, Venezuela on May 6, 1989. Arzola is gay and non-binary and uses he/him, she/her, and they/them pronouns in English.

Arzola studied graphic design at the Pascal University Institute of Technology and the Maracay drama school.

He was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at the age of 18, and has been open about his condition in his art.

Arzola currently works at the Boynton Health's Marketing and Communication department at the University of Minnesota in the United States. He teaches about Artivism at universities in the United States, Chile, Argentina, and around the world. Efebos was exhibited at several different artistic spaces in the city of Maracay, including the museum of history and anthropology, where Arzola received a special mention for being the youngest person to have an individual exhibit in that space. Efebos is an exhibition that mixes photography with poetry, both made by Arzola.

No Soy Tu Chiste Arzola created No Soy Tu Chiste (In English, "I Am Not Your Joke") in 2013 as an online campaign based on his own illustrations of well-known LGBT figures and characters alongside empowering messages. In March 2014, No Soy Tu Chiste partnered with the It Gets Better Project to create seven new posters in support of LGBT youth around the world, in twenty languages.

Five pieces from Arzola's project were selected by Katy Perry to be a part of Madonna's Art for Freedom initiative. He paid tribute to Sergio Urrego by illustrating a portrait of him alongside the phrase, "Ignoring abuse makes us violent." Days before his suicide, Urrego had shared a poster from No Soy Tu Chiste on his Facebook profile, which featured the quote, "My sexuality is not a sin, it is my own paradise."

In Argentina, in July 2016, a bill was presented to rename a recent subway station in Buenos Aires after renowned LGBT activist Carlos Jáuregui. To support the cause, Arzola illustrated a portrait of Jáuregui to promote the campaign. It gained much attention from the public in Argentina and various public figures, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. On March 20, 2017, Arzola exhibited a fourteen-meter mural at newly named Carlos Jáuregui station, including a portrait of the pride flag on the stairs to the station and six illustrations on the balconies.