To an address of their choice
Home, workplace, lawyer, newsroom, NGO or a trusted third party. We ask; we do not assume.
Photos · Constantinos Kollias, Joseph Quam, William Zhang, Gabriella Clare Marino / Unsplash
The award
The Aletheia
A sculpture carved by hand from a single block of wood, numbered and dated, framed with its citation and delivered anywhere on earth. Twelve exist each year. They cannot be bought, applied for or sponsored onto anyone — only elected by the public.
Design study. Each piece is carved individually, so no two are identical.
The object
A figure still coming out of the wood
The front of the figure is carved, sanded and oiled until the grain shines. The back is left as it came off the saw — raw, split, unfinished. The person is emerging from the block and is not yet all the way out.
That is what the Greek word alētheia means: not something invented, but something unhidden — pulled out of concealment. Every truth teller does the same thing at some cost, and none of them ever finish the job. The raised hand carries a flame in polished brass, the only metal on the piece.
- Height34 cm (13.4 in) including the plinth — deliberately close to the scale of the film and literary awards people already recognise.
- MaterialOne block of solid hardwood, hand-carved. European walnut as standard; olive, oak, iroko or a wood native to the recipient's country on request.
- MetalCast brass flame, and an engraved brass plate set into the plinth with the name, the month and one line of the citation.
- EditionTwelve a year, numbered № 01 to № 12 and dated in Roman numerals, burned into the underside with the carver's mark.
- WeightApproximately 1.6 kg — heavy enough to feel like an object, light enough to post.
- Not for saleNo copies, no replicas, no commercial version. If one ever appears at auction it will be because its owner chose to sell it.
The encadrement
Framed before it leaves us
The citation is not sent as a loose sheet to be rolled up in a drawer. It is letterpress-printed on cotton paper, hand-numbered, set on an acid-free mount and framed in solid walnut behind anti-reflective glass, with a small brass plate on the frame itself.
It arrives ready to hang. That matters more than it sounds: the people who receive this are often in the middle of proceedings, out of work, or far from home. Nobody in that position goes looking for a framer.
- Size30 × 40 cm framed (A3-ish) — fits a wall, a bookshelf, or a lawyer's office.
- FrameSolid walnut, matched to the sculpture, with a fine brass lip.
- GlazingAnti-reflective, UV-filtering glass, or acrylic where postal rules or the destination make glass unwise.
- LanguagePrinted in the recipient's own language, with an English or French version on the reverse if they want one.
Truth Icon of the Month
[ Name of the elected ]
“Elected by the public of the world in recognition of a truth told at great personal cost, and of the courage it took to tell it.”
Month Year · № 01 · Truth Icons
Mock-up of the framed citation. Final typesetting is done for each recipient.
In preparation
A sculpted bust will stand here
A commemorative bust, conceived in the tradition of the principal awards of cinema and letters, is presently being modelled. It is intended to accompany the Aletheia and will be dispatched to elected recipients alongside it.
The design is not yet complete and will not be shown until it is. This space is reserved for the finished work, which will be published here, with its dimensions, its materials and the name of the sculptor, as soon as the master is approved.
What arrives
One case, five things inside
Packed in a felt-lined wooden case, inside plain outer packaging with no branding and no sender details that could identify the contents at a border.
I
The sculpture
Carved, numbered and signed by the maker, seated in a cut felt bed.
II
The framed citation
Letterpress on cotton paper, walnut frame, ready to hang.
III
The certificate of provenance
Hand-numbered, recording the vote, the countries it came from and the wood used.
IV
A letter
Signed, personal, and written to be read by someone who may have heard very little kindness lately.
V
A private list of help
Legal, financial, digital-security and psychological support available in their country. No obligation to use any of it.
№ 01
Certificate of provenance
Carved from [wood] by [maker], [city]. Elected Truth Icon of [month] [year] with [n] votes cast from [n] countries. One of twelve pieces made in [year]. This piece is not for sale and was given without condition.
Signed · the maker · the Society · the month
Why so few
Rarity is the whole point
Twelve a year, made by hand, given only by public vote and never sold. In ten years there will be a hundred and twenty of them in the world, in a hundred and twenty houses, offices and case files.
An award that could be bought, lobbied for or sponsored onto a shortlist protects nobody. This one is worth carrying into a courtroom precisely because there is no way to get one except to have deserved it in front of strangers.
Delivery
Anywhere on earth, safely
An award that arrives at the wrong address can be a danger in itself. We plan the delivery with the recipient, never around them.
Held, if that is safer
If the moment is wrong we keep the piece in store and send it when they say so — a month later or three years later. It stays theirs.
Plain packaging
No branding outside, no sender details that identify the contents in transit or at a border, and customs papers that describe it honestly as a gift of no commercial value.
Or handed over in person
Where a member organisation of the Truth Teller Society is nearby and the recipient prefers it, someone brings it to them.
Who can receive it
Including people in office
Nurses, auditors, soldiers, reporters, engineers, interpreters, warehouse workers — and politicians and public officials, who are explicitly eligible.
A minister who published the report she was told to bury, a mayor who named what was happening in his own administration, a diplomat who refused to sign a cable he knew to be false, a legislator who broke ranks to put the truth on the record: these are among the costliest acts of truthtelling there are, and there is almost nowhere that honours them. The conditions are strict — a specific verifiable act, a real personal price, and no campaigning — and they are set out in full on the rules page.
Why an object, in an age of posts
A screenshot disappears. Carved walnut does not.
The wave of support lasts eleven days, then the internet moves on and the court dates begin. What stays on the shelf is the thing that says, in a form nobody can delete, that a great many strangers believed they did the right thing. Lawyers put it in the file. Families keep it. Employers and prosecutors see it.
Sponsor a year of the Aletheia: twelve carved pieces, framed and delivered worldwide, cost less than most organisations spend on a single evening event. Sponsors are named publicly or stay anonymous, and have no say whatsoever over who is honoured — that separation is written into the charter. Write to donors@truthtellersociety.org.