This programme of work engages with the ‘shadow pandemics’ of Covid-19, including enhanced inequality, racial injustice, mental health concerns, and domestic violence. It draws on an existing project called Arctivism, developed collaboratively by the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) and the Open Society Foundations. From 2020, 39 artist-activist collaborations were funded across the world, focusing on documenting the impacts of Covid-19; assessing individual, organisational and community wellbeing; understanding the implications of new practices of care, collaboration and solidarity for alternative futures; and analysing the implications of the pandemic for human rights activism, and civic and political space. Diverse forms of collaboration and artistic practices were supported, with the latter including theatre, music, murals, cartoons, drag performances, and more.

If the pandemic can be understood as a ‘breaching experiment’ (Scrambler, 2020), disrupting the social order and allowing us to see its rules more clearly, what does this enhanced visibility and questioning of the rules of the game – including the rules of human rights – mean for Covid’s aftermaths? ART will build on Arctivism to explore the implications of the pandemic and its legacies for new languages and idioms of human rights.