ART newsletter summer 2023

Welcome!

Welcome to the second edition of the Art Rights Truth (ART) newsletter! We have spent the last few months hard at work in the first phase of the project, analysing artworks created as part of projects feeding into ART, and interviewing the artists and activists behind these. This has been essential in developing the first commissioning call, which we released on 5 May. Read on to see some of the highlights from these interviews, details of the commissioning call, and links to three new blog posts from the ART team.

Pooja Dhingra - Compassion Contagion

Interviews

The teams have been interviewing the artists and activists behind artworks created in projects that feed into ART, or which hold key insight and inspiration for our research. These interviews have given us plenty of food for thought, helping us identify the ways in which artists and activists understand the links between art and activism; the responses generated by arts-based work; collaboration; and emerging languages or ways of communicating suffering, violence, pain - and redress and recovery.

Our interview with Conexiones Climáticas (Climate Connections - Mexico) made us think about how the arts could spark a communication inversion in human rights, where instead of speaking to those in power on their terms, we used playfulness, satire and ridicule to make those same audiences uncomfortable. Punk was a major theme when we talked with Plural (R)existences (Brazil). Punk involves connecting more with our inner child or our inner anarchist and working outside of the constraints of the system – who would be empowered to speak if we applied this to human rights activism, and what would they say? Speaking with Compassion Contagion (India), we thought about resilience. How do we share stories of compassion and care – and therefore, work towards moving away from negative narratives in human rights – without romanticising resilience? Follow us on Instagram for more reflections as we continue with our interviews.

Commissioning Call: Conversations in Kiosks

In 2021, East Leeds Project (ELP) commissioned KIOSK, a mobile makerspace that hosted conversations with local communities in Gipton, England. Building on this idea, we are inviting collaborations between artists and activists (broadly understood) to make their own KIOSK. KIOSK is a mobile structure, it can be an architectural or an immaterial space, including online platforms, soundscapes or other sensorial interventions; it could also be an existing structure or vehicle. Once in place, KIOSKS will be opened to the public, who are invited to join in with arts-based activities that generate conversations relevant to the artists’ and activists’ local context on any of the following themes: Futures of Care, The Politics of Hope, Shrinking / Expanding Space, and Connecting Human and Non-Human Rights. At the end of Conversations in Kiosks, we will bring artists and activists together to share their experiences and connect with each other.

Please note this is a targeted commissioning call which is only open to selected artists and activists whose work we believe will be a great fit for this call. We are looking forward to sharing commissioned projects with you later in the year!

Blogs

Image credit: Claudia Gaitan

We have three new blog posts online from the ART team.

Art and Embodied Human Rights Practice

For victims and witnesses of abuses, the lingua franca of the human rights practitioner can sometimes feel distant, remote, stubbornly immaterial. In his blog, Brian Phillips argues that artists can help re-centre the human body and the realm of the everyday in human rights practice.

Joy and Human Rights

In her piece, Tallulah Lines is inspired by US artist Rashaad Newsome’s short film Build or Destroy to think about the role of joy in art and human rights. She argues that art can help bring to life theoretical concepts like Black Joy or Decolonial Joy, that may inspire new ways of thinking about human rights.

Finally, journalist Rafael Quintero narrates his experience of joining Arhuaco elders and members of the Colombian Truth Commission, including ART team member Alejandro Castillejo, as they ‘weave words’ in a ritual reading of part of the Truth Commission’s report. This post is translated and abridged; see the original article in Spanish here.