2013 – Creating Rights

Moving Walls, a photography exhibition documenting social justice and human rights

Photograhy 3 December 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

By Fiana Gantheret Following up on the implications of photojournalism in humanitarian settings, today's post will look into the Open Society Foundations Moving Walls exhibits. Open Society Foundations have organized, since 1998, an annual documentary photography exhibition entitled Moving Walls, which presents the work of several photographers about subjects related to social justice and human rights issues. Moving Walls 20 is this year's edition, and is exhibited in the New York offices of Open Society Foundations until 13 December 2013. Each photographer's exhibit comprises about 20 pictures documenting one subject. 20 images that depicts a reality. Borderland: North Korean Refugees Katharina Hesse's work shows North Korean refugees and activists that help them cross the border between North Korea and China, as well as landscapes of the fields that these refugees have to go through to escape.

Emiliano Larizza: Aesthetical photo journalism in humanitarian settings

Photograhy 24 November 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

by Nicola Popovic

“Say: 'peace'!”

Pictures are part of Emiliano Larizza's work that won the World Press Photo contest in 2012

An art exhibition of pictures taken in humanitarian settings always moves us, leaves us thinking about what we can do, what we have done, how we live and maybe even leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. I wonder what the pictures have changed in the person’s life they portray. Images are powerful. They have moved people, changed their mind, influenced political decisions and even have a say over investments in development cooperation and humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, mass media often uses an emotive and polarizing discourse which influences the visual representation of the already established.

Scaffold: an architectural perspective on the death penalty in The Hague

Architecture 11 November 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

by Fiana Gantheret Scaffold The wooden installation by the American artist Sam Durant looks like a gigantic children's play structure and stands on the grass next to the International Zone in The Hague, The Netherlands. The sign at the bottom of the stairs is daunting: "Access at your own risk - Children under guidance only - Beware of slippery and protruding parts - Do not climb". A large metallic staircase located on one side of the installation brings the visitor to a wooden floor made up of several levels. Each level is composed of a reconstructed wooden gallow that was used in an execution "of historical significance in the United States", one can read on a sign visible on the platform. The announcement at the bottom of the installation, the "protruding parts", the slippery stairs... seems to have a meaning : one cannot approach - let alone access - a scaffold without risk and roughness being involved.

The Act of Documenting

Cinema 4 November 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

by Nicola Popovic “Art does not make a difference- until it does” - Werner Herzog talking about Joshua Oppenheimer's movie, The Act of Killing

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3^rd of October 2013- The air in the room is unbearably warm after three hours spent watching the director’s cut and following the “questions and answers session” with the director himself, Joshua Oppenheimer. It is an honor to be here and no one seems to want to leave until the very end. I was lucky to get ‘standing-tickets’ as I had not reserved ahead to see the “Act of Killing”, a movie that I had come across only weeks before at the first Human Rights film festival in Myanmar. There, it has been awarded the prize for best movie, which is remarkable in a country run by a military regime until recently.

Free Spirits

Drawing 28 October 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

THE EXHIBITION

The Alliance Française presents a three months exhibition in the lounge of the Gember restaurant of GEM/ museum in The Hague. The exhibition is free of charge, orchestrated by the non-for-profit organisation Cartooning for Peace, and more information can be found here. Drawings, paintings as well as sets of pictures and articles produced by more than 40 cartoonists from all over the world are displayed on three walls, around three topics : Peace and Revolutions; Freedom of Expression; and Human Rights.

Welcome to Creating Rights!

Welcoming Note 27 October 2013 0Comments 0Reactions

Creating Rights is an idea born out of passion for both art and human rights, and the belief that art introduces us to other states of the world than the often crude and inevitable one we know. Art is a means to express a vision of the world which puts up a mirror to our own…